The Blade of the Emperor
by sayain673
Summary: "...The foes of the Imperium shall perish by the holy blades that he wields - unlimited in his armory-, sundering the alien, the heretic and Great Enemy alike. He is to be my champion, a paragon to all he commands and those who look upon him. He shall be the first of his kind: The Swords of Justice, a Lost Founding of my angels now returned to me. His name...is Shirou Emiya."
1. From the Ashes: The First Awakening

**I still know what you're thinking- "Y U NO UPDATE _DoZ_ or _AtM?!" _Blame the hurricane. I lost power to my house and I had to go pump water out of my uncle's basement. And maybe that's foolish on my part because I store all of my fics on the internet. In the dark age that had temporarily settled at my house where there was no power or internet, I managed to *rage* type out a plot bunny digging around my head for days on end. And it surprisingly turned out to be good when it received positive feed back from a select few beta readers (you know who you are. Thank you.). So, I decided "why the hell not" and I figured I may as well post it as a mini-series to try and find inspiration for more _DoZ _or _AtM._**

**In my opinion, the Unlimited Blade Works persona of Shirou (EMIya) fits well into the grim-dark setting of Warhammer 40k. His warrior's demanour, I found after carefully going over countless Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, matches those of the Slamanders, the Sons of Primarch Vulcan. They love to fight and smash, bash and blast, but Vulcan taught them to value the lives of Imperial Citizens and the men working in their ships and homeworld. The sentiment is something that I am very sure that Shirou can understand.**

**I wrote this listening to "Two Steps from Hell" music (as usual) and Woodkid to put my mind in the appropriate setting for grim-dark. To enhance your reading experience, listen to either "Moving Mountains" or "Iron" (AC3 is EPIC, but Revelations had the best trailer, hands down). But in all respects, it was really hard to write combat from Shirou's POV without going to at least another F/SN crossover or reading some WH40k fluff.**

**O.K. Here's the general run-down, and in the style of gabriel blessing, here's what's what. And beware; there may be SPOILERS!**

**1) The cultists are those of Tzeentch. No Chaos Space Marines (Thousand Sons) have attacked Shirou...yet...**

**2) The planet that Shirou is on currently is Balaam, an agri-world (meaning farmers) in the Bhein Morr Sub-sector of the Gothic Sector, lying adjacent to the Eye of Terror and where Abaddon's 12th Black Crusade was fought in the voids of space. As of now, the 13th Black Crusade (started at 999.M41) is rampant across the galaxy as the eve of a millennium of fire begins, a.k.a. the 42nd millennium.**

**3) High Gothic is somewhat a mix of the Western Languages (English, French, German, etc.) of our time, albeit butchered, I believe. Is it a stretch to assume that Low Gothic is a form of bastardized, "oriental languages" (according to the Lexicanum)? That would mean that some aspects of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc. became part of Low Gothic. I honestly don't know...**

**4) The ending that I had Shirou take was the UBW True Ending, where he went to England as Rin's apprentice. **

**_DISCLAIMER- _sayain673 does not own Fate/Stay Night, any of its affiliates, or Warhammer 40k. They are, respectfully, owned by TYPE-Moon and Games Workshop.**

Here we go. God have mercy on my soul for what I have unleashed.

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_The shriek of the winds accompanied the slashes of black and white as I sundered the head of something that was once human, too many tentacles and scales on its body to come even close to the human genome. Mutated mandibles clacked in its death throes and its yellow eyes reflected the fear of the creature before I had released it from existence, the distaste in my mouth growing even stronger at the inhuman monster that had accompanied the raiders that attacked the settlement. Its head landed in the center of the town, black ichor corrupting the waters of the fountain and its body moved of its own accord, clutching the amulet of an eight-stared icon in a clawed hand as it fell to the dust. _

_I felt the air behind me distort and I tilted my head to the side, avoiding a beam of red energy that would have blown my head off. There was a host of men, garbed in black robes stained with blood, wearing necklaces made of skulls with the symbol of the eight-pointed star wrapped around their necks. Their leader, identifiable by the blue robes and iconic staff that crackled with malign energies, had a gun trained onto me, smoke sizzling from the barrel as he made strangled noises to his men._

_Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw flames envelop the place that had became my home. I heard the screams of the people that had welcomed me with open arms as they lay dying or wounded in the ashes and smoke. Anger clawed its way to the surface of my heart. This was an incident repeated throughout time, an incident that should never have happened, an incident that had forged me into the man I was today. The flames of war heated the crucible that I was inside of and I had withstood that punishment, swearing to never let another go through the hell I had gone through. And I would punish those who put them through it._

_I charged, my body only a blur of red-brown hair and black armor to the enemies in front of me. My blows were a tornado of fury, reinforced by the magic that I alone had mastered. It bore me bloody fruit as three men fell, clutching their chests in vain to contain the crimson liquid from bleeding from their bodies. A black blade whistled towards my unshielded ribs, its wielder hoping to take advantage of my momentary lapse of security. I feinted and countered, twisting the dark blade from his hands with the ivory blade and hacking through the wielder's shoulder with the ebony sword. It exited from his lower hip, bisecting him from shoulder to hip in a bloody, brutal and precise line. The two halves fell to the dirt._

_Reversing the blades in my hands, I pushed off of my foot and twisted, bringing a tornado of metal to the surrounding enemies flooding the blades with my od to Reinforce their edge. A raider screamed as his torso was separated from his hip, desperately clutching spilled offal and bloody viscera as he tried and failed to prevent them from spilling onto the ground. Another fell, his chest a ruined mess of torn flesh and blood. Two more fell with butchered ribs that were visible through the mutated flesh. glaring white at the others._

_The survivors of group babbled incoherently as they aimed their guns at me. They unleashed a salvo of crimson energy that scythed through the ranks of their own more than it hurt me. I danced around them, dodging those that were wide off their mark and blocking those that were too close with the blades of my swords. The accumulated strain of ten minutes of intense fighting, slaughter from their perspective, accompanied with the energy that struck Bakuya and Kanshou caused the black and white swords to shatter in my hands, sending metal fragments through the air._

___The leader screamed at the soldiers and cultists to charge in the name of their god, "for it had given them a blessing" and kill the "corpse-emperor's servant", waving his staff to urge them on. __They gave a gurgling cheer at the destruction of my weapons and surged forward to overwhelm me with numbers, some drawing serrated blades while others reloaded their energy guns._

_Big mistake._

_The raiders closed on me, screaming curses, oaths and threats as to what was going to happen to me when I fell to their weapons._

_Trace on._

_Their blades descended..._

_...and met the twin blades of Bakuya and Kanshou, forged by a nameless pair of married blacksmiths who carved their names into legend with the creation of the physical representations of the Yin and Yang. _

_And brought back from the void by my magic._

_Their jaws, mandibles or whatever passed for their mouths opened wide in horrified surprised at the appearance of the two swords that they thought were shattered beyond repair. I released them from their shock as the blades claimed the lives of four more cultists in one, Reinforced blow. They panicked, some running as their leader shouted for order while others brought arms at me, dialing the energy gauge on the side of the gun to what I believed was max power. I brought the ivory blade in a devastating slash across the gun as its partner cleaved through the chamber of another. Something went critical inside the workings of the gun and it exploded as the blades exited, sending flame and shrapnel to their wielders and felling another pair._

_Fear was now open on all of their faces. _

_They had come looking for an easy target, unable to defend itself and do nothing save running and dying as they hacked, shot, slashed and raped their way through to the next one._

_Rage, unquenchable only by their corrupt, foul blood, was roaring in my ears as I charged towards the now-clustered group of cultists, their leader shielded by the meat of his soldiers._

_They had found ruin and death awaiting them with black and white scythes as they would have justice delivered unto them._

_Cultists screamed and soldiers shrieked as the blades danced but I could hold any quarter for murderers, rapists or despoilers._

_They had found me._

_-Scene Break-_

**Chapter One: From the Ashes- The First Awakening**

_Phearus Settlement- Balaam_

The light of dawn broke over the treetops that stood sentinel over the farming settlement, bathing the area with the light of a burning star as the planet's rotation took it into the path of the passing luminescence. Farmers of Balaam would be waking up to the roars of a Grox pack that roamed the forests near the settlements and would ready themselves for another day, farming in the glorious name of the Emperor. But as sunlight illuminated the Phearus settlement of the southern continent, the inhabitants of the town had much more dire concerns than farming as they beheld the sight of the bodies.

In the center of the town, scores of bodies littered the ground, twisted mutants and fallen humans outnumbering the dead of the settlement and Guardsman that fell defending the populous. Violent lacerations and blood-soaked gashes decorated the corpses of the attackers, some having cleaved through the entirety of several carcasses. Black and red blood ran together through the town, painting the soils of the world crimson and whetting the constant appetite of the earth with the life-force of the fallen.

Tessa Kors ran through the streets, taking care to avoid stepping on the corpses of her friends and neighbors but she held no such reserve for the mutants and cultists. The flurries of ash drifted down through the buildings surrounding her, the dark clouds scudding above the rooftops, which waved in the wind like questing tentacles, promising a real blizzard of wind before morning. She shivered, wrapping her cloak around her as an ominous sense of foreboding settled around her frame, intensified by the howling winds and dimly lit sky above her head.

She heard the panicked shouts of her parents and siblings calling her back where they had hid during the night, but she ignored it and ran faster, ducking her head to look through alleys and alcoves. Their panic had logic in it, as their newest addition to the settlement had told them to barricade themselves inside before he ran off to join the Planetary Defense Forces. But what good could he have done? He did have a muscular body (something that she wished she hadn't been paying so much attention to) and was capable of strength, but it would've been all for naught against daemons and mutants.

"Tessa! What in the Emperor's name are you doing?!"

She glanced to her right and the bedraggled form of Enforcer Drake limped over to her, black Carapace Armor badly scored with shards of metal and white cloth tied around his bald head. Noticing his left leg jutting out at an odd angle, Tessa hurried over to him and he gingerly accepted the shoulder she offered him, wincing as she continued to walk.

"Thanks," he grunted out as she helped him limp through the smoke and ruin. "Damned witch whoreson threw me across town. Clean break when I landed on the roof of the barracks." He hissed slightly as his leg brushed against a fragmented beam of wood. "But why the hell are you out here? Your family-"

"Is safe," she interrupted, answering his unasked question and hoping he wouldn't pry further. "Have you seen him?" she rushed to ask as they rounded a corner.

His mouth twitched in confusion. "Seen who?"

"The man that's been staying at my house for the past two weeks! The off-worlder..." she struggled to remember how to say his name. Throne, it was such an odd name for her to pronounce, speaking in Low Gothic. Though in the back of her mind, she supposed that the absence of the proper pronunciation was due to the smoke, fire and corpses of mutants and men that littered the street; undoubtedly, those factors had contributed to her temporary lapse of her guest's name.

"Never mind." she stated, deciding to take a different approach to finding him. "Did you see anyone with red-brown hair? And eyes of gold?"

Drake started suddenly, squeezing her shoulder to the point to where it began to hurt. She gave a small shriek of pain and he immediately relaxed his grip on her. "I'm sorry, Tessa," he apologized, looking both mortified and grim as she gave him ahurting look."But...that's the man who's been living with you?" Despite their surroundings, she still was able to flush red. "He's a guest, Drake!" she protested as they rounded a corner. "And he's been a big help to the farm. But you _have_ seen him!" she implored, hoping that the red tinge on her face would die down as the cold wind blew around them.

"I recognize the description," he confirmed with a tone that she could have interpreted as anything; apprehension, agitation and fear. "But I wouldn't have believed that he's your..._guest_." Tessa turned to him and in the dark illumination and flickering embers, she saw his teeth bared in unease and heard his breath come out in deep rasps. She had never seen Drake as tense and uneasy as this. Not even during the Cartel Wars that had rampaged through the entire planet ten years prior..

"What's wrong?"

There was a brief moment of silence as they walked through the ruins. He took a deep breath and shook more ash out of his eye, shivering but she couldn't tell if from the cold or the massacre. "Look at the corpses," he muttered, gesturing limply at the mutants with his good arm. "Look at how they died. The small company of Thunder Fists we have at Phearus is equipped with only lasguns and combat knives," he intoned, mentioning the name of the PDF garrisoned across the planet. She took a brief look and turned away in disgust, but she saw that they were covered in bloody, yet precise, lacerations. "And the strokes of the blade-work are too elegant to be Captain Kane's chainsword."

He looked her in the eye before she could respond and she could see agitation visible in his blood-shot eyes. "Tessa, I saw your guest with red-brown hair and eyes of gold slaughter his way through the horde of chaos forces. He slew them with no hesitation, wielding black and white swords that dripped with blood. And when his blades were destroyed," - he paused to take a deep breath and make the sign of the Aquilla with his hand- "He used some kind of warp magic that spawned forth new weapons out of the void.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself, Tessa," he finished with a grim look on his face. "But that man is more dangerous than the cultists and mutants combined."

Those last words were like a great bell of ill omen, tolling its doom inside Tessa's head. She honestly couldn't believe what Drake had told her. She started to shake at the Enforcer's revelation, desperately trying to refuse this information about her guest. Her guest that smiled warmly, helped till the soil and cook for them could not have possibly been responsible for the deaths of the forces of chaos. She refused that such a gentle man could be a cold-blooded killer.

But Drake's tone and eyes conveyed otherwise.

The sound of a shriek jolted out of her reverie and Drake tensed, his good hand reaching for the shock maul holstered at his hip. It continued, accompanied by incoherent noises and shouts of panic that soared through the winds and ashes. She heard the rumble of synthetic boots and out of the cloud of ash, the soldier of Phearus garrison emerged, clutching lasguns as they ran towards the source of the noise. Captain Kane led his troops, reciting passages of courage from the green primer he held in his hand as they streaked across the ruin.

"C'mon!" Drake suddenly started and he hobbled towards the sound of the noise. "Get me to them!" Tessa obliged and helped him on, following the Fists to the source of the noise.

_-Scene Break-_

"Come any closer and I'll summon a daemon of Tzeentch!" The leader of the cultists screamed, his tone slurred by the puss-filled tumors adorning the side of his face as in one hand, he held a pistol trained at me and with his other hand, energy, crackling and malign, gathered in his hand. The people who were watching us had began to scream and panic, clutching loved ones and neighbors and babbling prayers to their "God-Emperor" that would probably have little effect on the current situation. "Drop the swords, too, boy!"

I looked at him disdainfully. His blue robes were completely drenched in blood and black ichor, the yellow hood torn back and dangling from a bloody medallion and his blue-purple eyes were bulging wildly. The icon of the eight-pointed star lay broken on the ground, its mount on the staff shattered and ruined. The spineless bastard had only survived because of the living shields that were his subordinates, no, mindless rabble that followed his madness.

Disgraceful.

I had no idea what in the Root a "daemon" was, but judging from the reaction of the settlers, a daemon had to be as bad as, if not worse than, a Dead Apostle or any other supernatural monster that Gaia had spawned. I wasn't about to risk the lives of the populous just to satisfy my own curiosities of this new world I found myself in, though. Without another word, I threw the black sword as hard as I could through the air. It whistled over the broken ruins, vanishing into the clouds of ash and smoke. The cultist's eyes tracked the blade before it disappeared from his sight.

His mouth twisted into a parody of a smirk as he thumbed the safety of the weapon and I heard the small whine of energy gathering in the chamber. "Drop the pale blade. And put your hands where I can see them." I complied, staking Bakuya into the ground and raising my hands in a non-threatening gesture, sending a small flow of my Od into my battered black armor and Reinforcing the metal.

"What manner of psyker are you?" he hissed at me as the malign energies in his hand began to grow dangerously larger. The people screamed louder in response. "My witch sight cannot sense any warp-taint in your body, boy, but you are not severed completely from the warp. Yet you can wield strange sorceries that are even a mystery to me. What are you?" he growled, spitting out the words as if it pained him to speak it.

I glanced over his shoulder and grinned, surprising him with my sudden display of amusement. The langauge of the locals was still an anathema to me, but I had learned enough over the course of two weeks to convey a response to the cultist.

"My name is Shirou Emiya," I calmly replied, in a butchered form of the locals' "Low Gothic", the dark grin on my face growing larger with every passing moment. "And tell whatever dark diety you worship that I am an Ally of Justice."

He looked at me in what appeared to be incredulity before the whistling sound returned in the air. Alarmed, he turned his head to see what the cause of the sudden noise was. Shrieking for his blood as it flew in the air, Kanshou ripped through the leader of the cultists, tearing him in half and spraying corrupted ichor across the ground. The bisected body had no time to hit the ground as I lifted the white blade from the ground and caught the black in my other hand, as both blades were physically drawn to each other, no matter the distance of seperation. The leader's eyes quivvered, bulging in fear at me before they glassed over as the damage I had wrought took its toll on its victim.

"There he is, sir!" a shout came out from behind my point of vision.

"Firing lines, now!" I heard a rough voice bark out. "I want all guns beared on the witch!"

I sighed and turned around. The sight of about twenty men with energy rifles greeted my vision and the lingering note of the weapons charging lingered in the air. A man in a trench coat raidiated authority whilst holding a green book in one hand and a sword with churning teeth that screamed for blood in the other.

Damn. Not exactly the first thing I wanted to greet me as the sun rose over the fires of the morning.

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******I am in need of advisors in order for this fic to work. Nasuverse and 40k experts are my preference. Don't hesitate to shoot me a PM or a Review when offering any advice or comments.**

******If you have any comments, threats, flames, criticisms, etc. please don't hesitate to PM me or post a review. I will accept it with my head held low and my body and mind humble. Just try not to overly curse me if I did anything overtly stupid.**

******I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


	2. From the Ashes: The Second Awakening

**I'm honestly still surprised at the massive explosion of feedback, follows and favorites that followed the initial publication of this story. You flatter me so much.**

Addressing the fans:

yomanyo: I'm kinda confused about the concept of the Ultimate Ones, as the TYPE-Moon Wiki is *basically* a bit of a HUGE info dump, so I need more time (and a run-down summary) before I decide if the Emperor is the Earth's Ultimate One. As for Tracing power swords and chainswords, all Shirou needs to theoretically do is perform a structural analysis and voilà! The weapon should appear, though I highly doubt that their owners would allow "a witch" close to their weapons for offending the machine spirit. That and the Adeptus Mechanicus would throw a hissy fit at the prospect of a "traced STC construct". But then again, it was Shirou himself who proclaimed that it is possible for the fake to beat the original.

Blinded in a Bolthole: It took some consideration, but I finally figured out my loophole for the language barrier. During the Great Crusade, when Expiditionary Fleet [Insert Number Here] made planet fall on present-day Balaam, they found that the locals were speaking a crude/mixed cobination of Japanese and Chinese. As of the 42nd millenium, there are two main languages on Balaam: Low Gothic and Local (Balaamese), both of which all citizens know, save for the higher ups who know High Gothic as well. Maybe I should start making Codex enteries of my own at the end of each chapter...

Reality and Fiction: All I can say is that Shirou has been sent into the future of his dimension, so no, this is not an alternate universe by the magic of the Kaleidoscope. The circumstances for his entrance into the future is a story for another chapter ahead of us.

Krulk: The reason that it feels so right is that Fate!Shirou would hesitate cutting down xenos and Heaven!Shirou is too much of a jerk (at least to me. I personally see Heaven!Shirou becoming a Radical Inquisitor). UBW!Shirou has no such reserve for anything that threatens humanity, but non-combatant xenos are an entirely different matter...

My: Hypothetically, it is possible, but in the future of humanity, are the dreams and hopes of all mankind still the same as they were in Shirou's time, or have they changed drastically enough for Avalon to be distorted?

Lord Eric: Possibly, but under sustained and heavy fire (from heavy bolters, plasma/melta guns and heavy las weaponry) it would shatter.

Heaven Chronicler: Yeah, whenever a person with "new abilities" pops up in the Imperium, people (The Adeptus Sorroritas, Inquisition, Adeptus Ministorum [Ecclesiarchy]) tend to freak out and purge it with fire. LOTS of fire. But I can honestly see Radical!Inquisitors from every branch trying to analyze Shirou and the source of his magic. Some would be thrilled to find out about another power that is not dependent on the Warp that can be utilized only by mankind (mainly Radical Inquisitors and . Others (Cough- Black Templars-Cough) would purge it with more fire.

To be honest, I prefer a single entity summoned into one universe than an entire pantheon of heroes, though a "Holy Grail War" in the style of 40k would be interesting. Obviously, any Space Marine worth his salt would be granted a place at the Throne of Heroes but if I were to write out such a story, I would only include the big boys (and girls) of the Imperium (Sorry xenos, I honestly don't think that the Throne accepts alien heroes).

Saber- St. Alicia Dominica/ Roboute Guilliman/ Lion El'Jonson

Archer- Jaghatai Khan/ Rogal Dorn

Lancer- Sanguinus

Caster- Magnus the Red

Rider- Leman Russ

Berserker- Lorgar (World Bearers)/ Angron (World Eaters)

Assassin- Corax (?)

_And I know that I promised another chapter by Christmas break, but that was delayed because of a certain christmas gift that was given to me: Kara no Kyoukai._

_My God, I think I skipped the ball-drop in New York watching this series! I'm obsessed/addicted with this anime! And now my new favorite shipping couple is Shiki X Mikiya. I thank the unknown artists who made all of the fan art (that really broke the sexual tension) of my new favorite couple. I'm such a sucker for cold girls and really happy (but somewhat bittersweet) endings!_

**O.K. Here's the general run-down, and in the style of gabriel blessing, here's what's what. And beware; there may be SPOILERS! And yes, it is a pretty long chapter, but if you have a problem with it, take it up in a review.**

**1) This chapter deals with the fallout of the revelation that Shirou is a magus, though they see him as a rogue psyker. Tessa still holds the belief that Shirou is a kind-hearted fellow, Drake sees him as a *VERY* dangerous threat, Captain Kane and his troops see him as an even MORE dangerous threat (but the captain has some sense of pragmatism gained through his years of being in the 'Guard) and the cleric is acting like a prime example of the Ecclesiarchy. Except the only thing that he's missing is FIRE!**

**2) It goes without saying that there is something of strategical significance for the Thousand Sons and their cultists that motivated them to attack a simple Agri-World. I can't say what it is, but it's important enough to send three Chaos sorcerers to spearhead the campaign of what amounts to be three companies of Thousand Sons (at least by Codex Astartes standards).**

**3) Yes, Baneblades can be found in the forces of a PDF (An example being the PDF in the Uriel Ventris Ultramarines novel ****_Courage and Honor; Father Time_**** is one hell of a name to bestow upon an instrument of death). More commonly, Leman Russ tanks are being held in high regard as they are easily produced (at least by Mechanicus standards). That and most clerics depicted in the fluff (at least the one's I've read) tend to be zealots or Redemptionists (kill it with fire or kill it with MOAR fire). I highly doubt that they last long if they begin to act like squad morale officers...**

**4) And now the chapter you've been waiting for...Shirou vs Chaos!Space Marines. Now here's where I have to really put my head to the metaphorical grindstone. The tank battles were something that I just threw in to set the mood (I have consulted both the table-top game and the Dawn of War games, with the latter being a simulation of battle. Yes, it is possible for overwhelming numbers to cripple a Baneblade) before Shirou entered the stage with magic.**

**Space Marines are known for slaughtering droves of humans (the type of human depends on their personal faction) but then again, Shirou isn't some run-of-the-mill Imperial Citizen, let alone a psyker. It would be easy to write a one-sided fight from a Servant's point of view, but Shirou is completely different from a Servant like Archer (EMIYA or Gilgamesh) or Saber, who could easily butt heads with a Chaos Space Marine.**

**Don't forget about the "Noble Phantasm v.s. Space Marine armour" crap I've been asking about. Let's just say that, with enough force, Byakuya and Kanshou can punch through Power Armour.**

**So that's why it is completely hard for me to write out the fight scenes that involve Space Marines against Shirou.**

**I honestly hope that I made the fight scenes with the Thousand Sons believable. Send me a PM or Review to voice your opinion.**

**Recommended soundtrack for today's fight scenes is "Defend the Villages" from Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. I'm saving the much anticipated "EMIYA" OST for the even more anticipated "Unlimited Blade Works" scene.**

**_DISCLAIMER- _****sayain673 does not own Fate/Stay Night, any of its affiliates, or Warhammer 40k. They are, respectfully, owned by TYPE-Moon and Games Workshop.**

**P.S. If anyone has a Photoshop app or something of the like, I would like to place a request for a title picture for this fiction. Be creative!**

**1/24/13: It has come to my attention that somewhere in this chapter, I f*cked up my description of the Thousand Sons. Turns out that there aren't any bodies inside the normal soldier's power armour. Oops. The mistake has been rectified. And I realized that there already WAS a Space Marine named "Astaroth" in the Loyalists side (Astaroth the Grim of the Blood Angels, for those of you wondering). That also has been rectified.**

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Did people shape the planets they lived on or did the planet shape the people it played host to? The people of Cadia are disciplined and enduring; men and woman from the death-world of Krieg are narrow-minded and absolute; the soldiers who were born on Catchan are pragmatic and hardy. Is this the result of the harsh climates and brutal necessities required for survival, or were the people who settled the planets eras past already predetermined by some supernatural force to adapt these qualities? Can the character of an entire world affect an entire population or is the human soul stronger than mere topography?

Captain Argos Kane of the Thunder Fists PDF was an adamant believer in that philosophy. He held in his mind that any citizen living on a world touched with the grace of the God-Emperor, which was every world the Imperium had under its control, was shaped by whatever the world had the misfortune to throw at him or her.

Blizzards were commonplace in the harsh winters of Balaam and the sun blazed furiously during the dry season where water was scarce and crops were carefully rationed. Worse enough, the Cartels had run their rampant course for over twenty years before a join-effort with the Imperial Guard and the Thunder Fists stamped them out in the shadow of Ageis Mountain. Death was a constant overseer on their world and they were no stranger to the malign sovereign it had over their lives.

They had endured.

Though it was their misfortune to be born into a bloody time of war, it was a citizen's responsibility on every world to adapt to the hardships of their planet in order to be prepared for whatever the galaxy threw at them, be it the xeno, the heretic, the mutant and the daemon. And, in the ideal situation (with the grace of the Emperor, of course) repel all invaders in the name of His most Glorious Imperium.

But none of his old Guard training could have prepared him for what would happen as the sun orbited around Balaam, showering solar energy and light upon the planet surface that early morning.

**Chapter Two: From the Ashes- The Second Awakening (V 1.1)**

_Phearus Settlement- Balaam_

Honestly? I can't say that I didn't expect this sort of reaction from my neighbors at the revelation of my magecraft. I mean, honestly, how common was it for a red-haired, golden-eyed young man to create swords out of thin air (as it appeared to them)? There was a clear fear of the supernatural, as I had gleaned from the local confessor Tessa had introduced me to about the need to "beware of witches, mutants and daemons", which was totally understandable for a people of a backwater, farming planet.

So, again, it was completely reasonable for the main and/or last remnants of the soldiers of the town to point energy rifles and swords with a shrieking edge at the savior of the town - me - who happened to be - from their point of perspective- a "warp-spawned witch".

But you know what? I blame the Root for this. That and Wizard Marshal Zelretch.

"I don't suppose we could talk this out?" I asked, displaying no sign of discomfort at the twenty guns pointed at me. Rin would have called me "a suicidal idiot" at the sheer flippancy that I was addressing the soldiers. I flooded the black armor that had accompanied me and I was wearing with my Od, Reinforcing the metal further in the event that things would get ugly.

The discharge of a red laser beam struck the ground near my foot, kicking up a small spray of dirt, and I saw smoke coming out of the leader's gun. "Be silent!" he, a high ranking officer if I was correct about the hat and trench-coat, barked. "Drop the swords, psyker scum, or my men will shoot you where you desecrate the Emperor's holy land!"

It was a reasonable request, disregarding the label that they had branded on my. A brief glance confirmed the fear that was present among the people that were screaming earlier had remained, if not intensified, at the death of the mutated leader that ordered the raiders. I dispelled the swords, watching the blades fade away into golden shimmers of light as they banished themselves from my sight. Huh. Even this planet recognized Byakuya and Kanshou as inconsistent with reality. Though as I made that discovery, it seemed that the dispelling of my swords only panicked the soldiers as a multitude of voices clamored from them and the civilians.

"Desist thy sorcery, abomination!" I glanced back up to see a rather _bulky_ man saunter from behind the troops over to the captain's side, his voice silencing all others. Swathed in swirling white-black robes, the man looked like what I could testify as a Church priest, if not for his adornments. Clutching a staff tipped with a skull and a piece of parchment adorned with archaic writing swaying in the wind, the man held a sword in a baldric slung across his back, a chained tome at his right hip and a large-caliber gun at his other. "Your foul warp-magiks will have no effect on the faithful servants of the Emperor!" he shouted as the breeze caused several parchments affixed to his robes with red wax to sway. "For I gird myself in the armor of contempt and make mine mind an impregnable fortress!"

This must have been the _other_ Confessor, the one that Tessa said she disliked because of his grandeur. Now do I only understand what she meant. The man radiated "I AM THE CHURCH".

The officer grunted at the arrival of the robed man. "Confessor Enoch. Nice of you to show up at the last second."

Enoch sniffed in response to the comment. "The ministrations to the dying always require time, Captain, but rest assured that the fallen have been granted a place at the Emperor's side. That and my colleague died a martyr defending the chapel," he added as he unholstered the pistol at his side and aimed it at me, "The rogue psyker needs to be bound. Preferably with a restraining collar and holy. You have your orders, Kane."

The Captain gave the slightest of nods, looked at me and leveled the chainsword at my torso. "Get me a restraining collar, the sharpest one we have," He growled, momentarily shutting down the chains of his blade for his voice to carry over to his troops. Two of them, probably rookies or privates, saluted and ran off to get the requested materials. He turned back to me, gesturing for the men to thumb the safeties off of their rifles. "Will you desist, psyker?" he spat at me. "On my oath to the Emperor, I can honestly guarantee that it will be the worse for you if you don't."

"To be honest, sir," I spoke to the captain, logically picking him as the most sensible of the pair, and hoping that he wouldn't mistake my sincere tone as something else...like recklessly stupid. "All I was doing was helping clean up the trash." At that point, Rin would have probably elbowed me hard enough to send me to the floor, regardless of "damaged goods". Blessed Root, I missed her antics. So damn much.

_-Scene Break-_

With a grunt of execration, Tessa managed to drag Drake over a fallen timber and together, they made their way awkwardly, but hurriedly, to the town center. In the back of her mind, she supposed that they must have looked odd to any member of the settlement that was still hiding; an Adeptus Arbites Enforcer was limping along the alleyway, clutching an upholstered and brimming shock maul as he was carried by the eldest daughter of a town Councilor.

Then again, this wasn't exactly a typical farming day for Phearus Settlement. No normal day's time blocks would include a Chaos attack.

"How close are we?" Drake gritted out as he used the back of his thumb to scratch out the accumulated ash that had gathered in his eye. "It's never good when a large amount of noise and panic suddenly goes silent."

"I think we're almost there," she responded as she glanced around the area for any monument to give them their position. She check to the ground, making sure that the footprints of the standard issue boots that the Fists wore were present in the soil. Throne, it was a nightmare to navigate through the falling ash and choking smoke that billowed around the town.

Another two steps took the duo out of the smokescreen and she squinted briefly, eyes adjusting to the sudden change in light before they widened in panic.

The dead body of a cultist, more mutated than the other corpses that she had seen, lay on the ground, vivisected and mutilated. But that was only secondary to the small crop of red hair that she saw among the billowing mass of green flak armor. The crowd of soldiers parted for an officer and a confessor to reveal a kneeling figure, whose hands were bound with engraved chains behind his back and a restraining collar clamped tight around his neck. He was bloodied, both stained with the corrupted ichor of the forces of Chaos and his own crimson vitae that was dripping from a recent cut across his face.

Somehow in the dull roar of protocol and orders, prayers and intonations of faith, he heard them approach and he lifted his face to see them. Her eyes of green met his of gold and he gave a small smile to her, nodding at her arrival. His name finally clicked in her head and she screamed it, horrified at the sight and condition her friend was in.

"Shirou!"

The soldiers turned to her, alert at the sudden source of noise, but Captain Kane sauntered over and, with much swearing, ordered the troops to stand down. At that, she would have run forward towards him and free him had not Drake suddenly tightened his grip on her shoulder at the first twitch of her muscles. Kane saw her and Drake near the border of the clearing and snorted in surprise. "Enforcer. I was sure that the Chaos bastard," he gestured with his chainsword towards the vivisected cultist, "Had sent you to the Emperor. But for once, I'm quite glad that my judgement was wrong."

Drake gritted his teeth as he smiled and powered down the shock maul. "I'm glad to see you too, Captain," he dispensed the pleasantry before his gaze turned serious. "What's-"

"Why is Shirou in chains?!" Tessa all but shrieked and interrupted when she managed to find her voice.

The PDF Captain spat on the ground before responding. "We arrived in time to see that man on the ground kill the Chaos bastard with some 'unholy sorcery'," he added a tone of sarcasm as he mimicked the words of a certain, Redemptionist Ecclesiarchy confessor. "He's been secured and as of now, we're awaiting transportation to a secure cell.

"But you know him, Tessa?" he asked her as his undivided attention was now focused on her at the revelation of his prisoner's name. "You know this rogue psyker?"

She made some sort of sputtering noise at the back of her throat. Shirou was a psyker? A witch?! Never! "Yes, I do, Uncle Argos!" Kane's eyebrow twitched at the nickname that he told her to call him when she was in her toddling years. "He's been staying at my house for the last few cycles! And if he was, I never knew! He's too nice of a person to be a psyker!" She pleaded her case to her father's best friend.

"You are connected with the witch?" Confessor Enoch roared behind the Captain. The cleric shoved his way past the soldiers with his staff to the party of three. Drake tensed and his finger hovered over the activation rune of the lowered shock maul. "Did you know, foolish girl, that tolerating the presence of a heretic is, in itself, a heresy?!" The immense feeling of horror grew stronger in her stomach as Enoch's hand gripped the air above his bolt pistol. "I should purge you-"

"ENOUGH!" Kane barked, elbowing the livid confessor. "We have other things to worry about aside from killing innocent girls, Enoch!" The cleric looked furious at the interruption of his fiery rhetoric of retribution but with a snarl, he relaxed and Tessa fell to the ground, legs giving way in visible relief and delayed shock as Drake struggled to ease her down gently with only a single working leg.

"How in the Emperor's name did a Chaos raiding force land on Balaam?" Kane's words were distorted in her ears as she hyperventilated and shivered in the cold. Drake wrapped the tattered remains of his cloak around her slender frame and she clutched the edges of the ragged fabric. "We should have had ample opportunity to receive warning and prepare! If that idiot Horst has been getting soft upon his seat at the capital, he's doomed the entire planet because of his sloth and apathy!"

"Captain, you cannot speak of the Planetary Governor in that tone!" a soldier said in horror at his senior officer's words.

His mate spoke up, adding to the sudden rise of complaints. "We managed to beat this force, sir! We can do it again."

"I don't care! Where one Chaos force comes, another follows like wolves to an injured grox! And I can almost guarantee you that there will be Traitor Space Marines in their midst! " The last set of words unintentionally sent the company of soldiers and civilians into panic as they realized that the worst was yet to come in the form of Fallen Angels of death.

The Captain and the confessor tried to restore order to the crowds, with Enforcer Drake joining in the cacophony of shouts and roars. Tessa was so cold and she shivered and began to tear. The PDF was in chaos and her friends and family were panicking and screaming. Shirou was in chains, falsely accused of being a psyker. Everything she held precious was going to the warp and if it hadn't already, it was going to soo-

The sudden chirping series of _beeps_ cut through her thoughts and the pandemonium, causing all to search for the sudden interruption of noise. Belatedly, Drake realized that the sound was coming from his portable vox unit that managed to survive the crash into the Arbites barracks. He let his right hand off of the throat of a panicking teenager and pressed the red rune that cut through the smog.

_"Enforc...forcer Drake...come in, sir,"_ the words came garbled outside of the little machine. Tessa saw Drake's left hand go from his shock maul to a dial alongside the box, tuning the dials to properly attune the machine spirit to the message. The words came much clearer, whatever soft murmuring and fine-tuning he performed appeased the machine spirit. _"Sir, we have an incoming transmission from the capital, marked with the voice code of Planetary Governor Lysias Horst and flagged as Priority Alpha."_

He thumbed the micro-bead attached to his throat where the input was near his mouth. "Play it then." He ordered with an imperious gesture to no one, a habit born out of instinct. "I want it broadcasting across the settlement's vox-system."

A garbled message of confirmation came before the broadcasting system of the settlement came to life. Normally used to signal the end of the working shifts and broadcast devotional hymns during the harvest and planting seasons, the pole-mounted vox system crackled to life as the unseen Troopers of the Arbites fed the broadcast into the system, undoubtedly doing everything in their power to keep the power running.

With a weary sigh, the voice of Planetary Governor Lysias Horst reverberated throughout the settlement:

_"My dear inhabitants and citizens of His most Glorious Imperium, I, Governor Lysias Horst, do address you with grim news and ill omens. Our beloved planet of Balaam has come under attack and, even as I speak, countless Chaos dropships are deploying troops onto our soil as their tainted vessels pollute our atmosphere above our heads. Already countless members of our community have perished at the hands of the heretics and mutant forces._

_If any survivors of our thirteen settlements are listening, I implore you to evacuate to the capital, leave treasures and valuables behind and only take what is necessary for the long journey. As the Saint Mordechai once said, 'The community that stays and prays together will be saved together'._

_But before our Astropathic Choir was clouded by foul sorcery, we managed to send out a distress beacon across the stars. Join me in prayer as I beseech the Emperor to deliver us from this evil and save our souls, with the descent of His Angels upon our blighted world."_

_-Scene Break-_

Fear.

The city was rank with it. He could taste the emotion in the air, savoring the scent that the weak made when they cowered before the mighty as it passed through his unhelmed face and brushed past the gifts of his patron god.

From the hill he was perched on, Ustaroth could see the pathetic humans gathering in supplication around an icon of the false emperor. He sneered at their behavior and ignorance. Blinded by futile devotion and herded like grox by the Ecclesiarchy, they continued to resist the Changing Way, clinging to the old and decrepit that should have been cast aside millennia ago. It was unnatural for an organism to deny the advancement of evolution, but in the end, it was their fault for not questioning. To think that he and his kindred in Chaos came from the same stock disgusted him to no end.

But it mattered little. The humans would be crushed underfoot by the mighty champions of Tzeentch, the Chaos god of mutation and change.

Ustaroth's mouth barely moved as he hissed out the orders to the warriors behind him. Before the "Revelation" (the weaklings called it the "Heresy"), he had been a tactical sergeant with decades of experience and warfare under his power armor. Aligning with the Chaos pantheon had done little to degrade his brilliant mind, but rather sharpened and honed it with the favors of his god. And with the Rubric of Ahriman cast, his skills as a Sorcerer were powerful, nowhere near the masters of his Legion, but powerful enough to crush a tank with but a mere thought.

"Move into the city," he hissed, snapping the gold-crested helm to his power armor and waiting briefly for the HUD to display the burning landscape and ashen sky. "Kill all warriors in your path. But spare the supple and young," he added with a malicious grin spreading across his mutated features. "They shall become a part of the Changing Way, whither they so desire or not."

His former brothers, now mindless drones blue-gold power armour that bent to his command, carrying bolters and flamers roared in response, shouting profanities against the false emperor and praises to their god as the thoughts of their master resonated through their empty shells. The cultists, each a man once of the Imperial Guard, now swollen and blemished with the blessings of the Changer, gave a blood-thirsty howl at his words. But it was the Horrors, a gift from Sorcerer Irimax, who reacted the strongest as they sent a keening shriek from their daemon mouths into the ash-choked sky.

"FOR CHAOS!"

_-Scene Break-_

"Emperor save us!" the lookout, most likely a rookie, shrieked atop the watchtower. "There's another force moving at hilltop, Captain! Hundreds of 'em and...Oh, blessed Terra! There are daemons in their ranks!"

The brief uproar of panic from the soldiers was quickly silenced with Kane smashing his chainsword into the adamantine wall, sending a high-pitched scream across the barracks that cut through the pandemonium like a power sword. "You'll keep it together, lads!" He roared, mounting the pulpit atop the platform of the Central Command. "You are soldiers of the Emperor, not some brainless rabble! I trained you better than that, now get to your stations before I send you to them from the cannon!"

A flurry of activity exploded in the PDF barracks as sergeants conveyed orders to their subordinates to scramble for positions. Kane looked upon them, mixed feelings clashing in his chest; apprehension in response to the threat of daemons and fiery pride for returning to an active war-front since his "retirement" from the 'Guard into the Thunder Fists. His wrinkled fists had lost none of their grip and his grey eyes shone as bright as he was a rookie, countless decades ago. He sent a small prayer to the icon of the Emperor adorned inside the barracks for the opportunity to war in his late years.

Something tapped his shoulder and he turned to face the mechandrites and wired appendages of Magos Chautori, the tech-priest assigned to their company. "Though the machine spirit of your tank is still temperamental, Captain," he intoned with as much liveliness as his vocal-vox could provide, "I have placated it to enable you to perform to the maximum potential. Though I am still surprised that Governor Horst bequeathed such a magnificent machine at your rank," he added with a small hint of longing and admiration.

Kane gave a grunt and climbed up the ladder to his personal Baneblade, _Fortress of Thunder _and leaned against the turret as his tank crew scrambled into the green-black machine. Why he couldn't drag it out for the initial raid was because of a "faulty fuel line" was beyond his comprehension, but he silently swore to take the advice of a tech-priest in a much lower regard in the event of a repeat of these events, Emperor forbid.

"I'm still surprised as you are, Vex," he used his friend's name, a sign that he was beginning to show the stress that was catching up to him. "Through some cosmic Administratum error, a shipment of ten of these magnificent machines were sent to our planet when resupply came. I am not one to look a gift grox in the eye," he added as he secured his goggles with an elastic _snap_ as the rubbed constricted around his temple, pushing the mane of white hair back from his temple. "Especially since Governor Horst is incompetent when sending out supplies to the settlements."

He glanced at the auspex that Vakarian was calibrating and blanched when he saw the coordinates of the hill. The usually placid green was liberally streaked with splotches of white to the north, meaning an enemy encampment was rearing to charge. Frak. This wasn't good. 37th Thunder Fists had suffered major losses and, he didn't to admit it in front of Enoch, but if it had not been for the intervention of the witch who was now being led into a secure Arbites cell, the entire company would have been destroyed. Kane knew they desperately needed more firepower if they were to last the siege.

"Vex, I need you and your team to do something," he shouted over the noise as the servos of the tank began to whine to life and the doors of the tank shed began to pull themselves open. "We have only a hundred men and one working tank. We need more, as the greenskin says, 'dakka' in our arsenal. Do you remember those two retired Leman Russ tanks that we drag out every Conquering Day?"

He saw his friend's hooded head nod in response before he saw the cybernetic oculars that had replaced his eyes expand and dilate in what Kane believed to be surprise. "Blessed Omnisaiah!" he exclaimed and the Captain was mildly surprised that the normally monotone vox took several high steps in pitch. "You honestly don't mean for me to-"

"That's right!" he had to shout his affirmation as a belch of smoke erupted from the engine of the _Fortress_, signaling that the tank was now fully ready to move into battle. "I need you to jury rig them into combat-worthy machines to escort my men! Every damn heretic and daemon is going to be ripping us to pieces; We must have additional armored escorts!"

The servos of Chautori's mechandrites began to gyrate in what Kane believed was either indignation, horror, or probably a mix of both. "You cannot expect me to rouse the warrior of the machine spirit when it has been slumbering for so long! Not to mention the amount of metal we need to replace the corroded armor plating! This is bordering techno-heresy!" he shrieked, turning off the vox to use the inflections of his regular voice. Wow. That meant he was angry.

"Jorgenson, get moving!" Kane roared at his driver, tapping his combat boots on the operator's head. An "aye, sir!" came from the depths of the tank and with a sudden lurch, the _Fortress of Thunder_ rolled out of the hangar. "The mounted autocannons on the city walls should buy you some time, Vex," he shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth to make his voice heard. "Just take as many men that aren't critically injured and work the skin off their bones! The Emperor protects!" he added, smashing his hand to the wide-brimmed cap in a salute as he exited the barracks. He saw the Tech-Priest slowly return the gesture with a mechandrite before he began to shout orders to his men in binary code.

_And so it begins_, thought the grizzled veteran with a small feral grin growing across his face as he slammed the hatch shut behind him and settled into his command seat.

_-Scene Break-_

I had been marched to what I believe was the city's equipment of a police department, though the building resembled a military barrack more than a law enforcement headquarters. Still, I had no time to take in the sight, and even if I did, I had no desire to risk opening my throat on the spikes that were just _barely_ pressing against my neck where the collar wrapped around it. But it honestly made me wonder what kind of degenerate fetish someone must have had in a high office to have implemented such tools in a local law enforcement.

With a snap, I felt the pressure of the collar leave my neck before the butt of a staff was driven into the small of my back, knocking me off-balance and sending me stumbling into a cell. My hands were still chained, so I had to wriggle my body around to see the cleric who was sneering at me from the other side of the bars. "You will be held here for the duration of the siege, witch," he stated as he dusted off his robes. "After we overcome this incident, you will be taken to the Black Ships. I don't know how you've managed to evade them for this long, but when they find you..." he left the end of the sentence hanging in the air, probably for dramatic effect. Apparently, he thought that those words were supposed to mean something to me.

This was a person who was more likely to die from a particularly nasty firearms accident than from actual combat. At least that was the case from my evaluation.

From the shouting and general panic that I overheard during my "escort", it wasn't too hard to figure out that another set of raiders, albeit a larger force, was gearing up for another attack. Civilians were being evacuated into underground bunkers, hurried on by wide-eyed guards as they constantly shifted their gaze, lingering on an object for no more than a few seconds. It was clear that they were going into a battle that they were hopelessly outnumbered in.

I saw Drake enter, hanging off one of his subordinates with a thick bandage wrapped around his head. "Confessor," he said, trying but failing to keep the distaste out of his voice. "The Captain had explicit orders for you to entrench yourself at the gates after delivering the psyker."

Enoch gave off another one of his disdainful sniffs before responding. "I know my orders, Enforcer. Make sure you perform yours," he said as he exited. "The Emperor protects." He added, with the crossing of his hands over his chest, making the shape of what appeared to be a double-headed eagle. Drake and his subordinate mimicked the gesture (albeit the Enforcer had to make do with one hand) and with that, the cleric finally took his leave.

The gesture the Enforcer made with his hand as Enoch exited the premises couldn't have been a sign of good luck.

_-Scene Break-_

A stab of pain lanced through her head as Tessa managed to come out of her state of shock. Pressing her hand to her temple, she mouthed a litany to the Emperor and tried to sit up from the metal bench, shrugging off the impromptu blanket the Enforcer's jacket made for her.

"Easy," a voice to her left came and she saw Drake limp over with a cup of recaf in his hand that he pressed to her. She accepted it with a meek "thank you" and began to drink the beverage, recoiling slightly at the earthy aftertaste the liquid left in her mouth. But as the beverage raced through her body, her thought process began to return and she immediately remembered the reason she fell into shock.

"What's happening?" she asked urgently, gulping down the rest of the recaf to revitalize her bodily functions.

Drake grimaced, his face pulling into the familiar look of apprehension she saw earlier. "Scouts have reported another Chaos attack force atop the overlook," he said, wringing his hands at the words, "And in their midst, they have daemons and Chaos Space Marines." Her breath hitched at that. She remembered from her early childhood lessons about the Horus Heresy that the Chaos Space Marines had no trouble fighting their way to Holy Terra, crushing planets underfoot in their wake and burning everything to the ground. And now the Fallen had descended on their planet and were attacking the settlement...the thought made her sick to her stomach.

"Kane and his men are at the gates, waiting for the bastards to attack," he continued, waving in the general direction of the town's main gate. "He's ordered the evacuation of the citizens into the underground bunkers and is waiting for Magos Chautori to finish field repairs on the two tanks we drag out every year. The boys are-"

A loud "INCOMING!" was their only warning when something whined through the air and impacted on the settlement walls, jarring the ground they were standing on and sending Drake off of his stool with a curse. Tessa clutched the blanket around her tighter in fear as she heard Kane's vox roar out orders to return fire and the sound of las fire ripped through the air.

Drake swore and shouted for his remaining troops to take up positions on the roof. "Power up the lascanon! It's our only hope of fending them off!" He roared into the micro-bead at his throat. He turned to her and he paled visibly before grabbing her arm. "Tessa, I need to get you out of here before they breach the gates."

She began to comply but her thoughts ran to Shirou as she made her way to the doors. "Where's Shirou?" she shouted.

Drake jerked his head back towards the stairs leading to the holding cells. "He's back there in holding, awaiting transportation to the capital after the siege is over!" he responded as another earth-shaking impact struck the walls. "C'mon, we have no time to lose!" he added before grabbing the activation key to one of the Arbites' Chimeras.

"I..." she stuttered before she managed to regain her voice, "I need to take him, Drake!" the words came out of her mouth before she had time to think about what she was saying. She instinctively flushed red when her thoughts finally caught up with her words; that and the incredulous look that Drake managed to form on his face at the request before realizing that she was serious. "We need to take him with us!" She was also surprised to feel that she was also dead-set on rescuing her friend.

"Are you-" he began before he broke off the reflex questino and delivered his answer. "No! You need to get to the bunkers, now!" he shouted, grabbing her arm and marching her forcefully to the Chimera as fast as he could on his bum leg. "Your dad would kill me if I let anything happen to you! That, and you know that he's being held on the charge of being a psyker!" She struggled against his grip before realizing that despite his injuries and all her twisting, he was still able to keep a firm hold on her. That wasn't fair!

She hung her head down, choking back a sob and her teary gaze landed on the shock maul, holstered at the Enforcer's good leg, the activation rune winking innocently back at her.

_-Scene Break-_

I could hear the sounds of war even in the underground jail, reverberating off of the walls as "vox" (their name for a radio) chatter punctuated the air every few seconds, shouting for reinforcements and reporting concentrated efforts to breach the gates. This wasn't good. Even if I could somehow break out of my bindings and knock the door over, I still had to fight through the men that were currently staffing the building. I had a feeling that it wouldn't do anything to help regain my appearance as a person who wanted to help out. Well, help out with magic that would probably see me consigned to the stake as a witch.

But the magus and normal sides of the analytic part of my brain drew my thoughts to the Captain's sword. The closest thing that I could summarize it with was the fact that a serial killer, in need of a more efficient way to kill his victims, decided to combine a chainsaw with a sword, birthing a "chainsword" as a result of the union of two weapons. It wasn't a normal sword, like Byakuya or Kanshou, that much was obvious, as it had a power source and mechanized bits.

It still looked to be an interesting endeavor to practice while I was languishing away in the cell. I had assumed that the strange engravings on my chains, a personal touch from the cleric who claimed it to be a "most effective tool against witches and psykers", would somehow act as a magic dampener and screw up the flow of od in my body. After a few small experiments in Reinforcing my clothing, it seemed that the engravings were disrupting the flow of mana in my body, but nothing too bad. If anything, it was just like putting a mute on a musical instrument; it blocked it, but some sound managed to escape the instrument's body.

The noises faded away until they were naught but a dull roar in the back of my mind as I went over the seven steps to Trace a weapon. This was, by my standards, just a check-over to make sure that if the event called for it, I could Trace said weapon.

_Judging the concept of creation_; it was meant to obviously be a weapon of war, used to kill adversaries in the most bloody and efficient way.

_Hypothesizing the basic structure;_ I was very confident that it looked like the hilt of a sword was attached to a chainsaw blade, albeit in a more seamless method of combining the two together. It wasn't a mass-produced weapon, but something that had been put together with parts and lovingly assembled.

_Duplicating the composition material;_ Adamantium was my prime component, as my neighbors had shown me that the weapons of the like were built form such material. I was going to have to go out on a limb and hope that Unlimited Blade Works could produce said metal.

_Imitating the skill of its-_

The fourth step was interrupted when I heard a sound resembling a charging generator, a strangled grunt sounding like "hrk" and a _thump_ from the floor above me. I opened my eyes and I saw Tessa running down the stairs, glancing in the air nervously at the sounds above our heads. What the hell was she doing here? I understood the Enforcer's presence in the building he commanded his men in, but Tessa was just a civilian, a farmer's daughter that I befriended in the past two weeks. If what the forces above said was true and that the enemy was at the gates, then this place was a prime target for the invaders to capture and she would be caught right in the thick of it.

I tried to sit up from the kneeling position I was currently in. My legs were asleep though, and I crumpled sideways to the floor. But despite my position, I could still manage a berating quip to the girl. "What the hell are you doing here?" Despite the relative lack of feeling in my inflection, I was seriously worried. I'd seen my fair share of war, even after the Grail War had concluded, and it seemed that even after we called ourselves as "civilized as we could possibly be", mankind couldn't escape the temptation of war crimes. And Tessa, being the beauty she was, was a prime target for such a crime.

"Shirou!" she cried, completely ignoring my question. She patted her pockets and fished out a bronze key. My eyes widened as my mind recognized the key to my cell. "Are you alright?" she asked, unlocking the door and walking to my crumpled form.

"I'm fine," I growled as she dragged me into an upright position. "Again, what the hell are you doing here?!" She flinched at the ferocity of my tone and words. "You should be in the bunkers already! And what happened to Drake?"

I wasn't expecting her to turn red at the last question. "I...he a-accidentally turned on the shock maul while it was holstered," She stammered. I knew a lie when I heard one and shook my head in amazement as I understood the meaning of her words. It seemed that the farmer's daughter had some steel in her. "But I'm here to rescue you, Shirou!" she exclaimed, squinting at the chains before running her hands along my bonds, searching for something that could have possibly resembled a lock to secure the metal encircling me. "Where's the key? I couldn't find it with Drake."

I shook my head again, this time in the effort of shaking her efforts off my body. "Forget it. Enoch has the keys and unless your plan included wading through the battlefield-"

A jarring impact, stronger than the previous ones, knocked me off of my already precarious position on my knees, pitching my body forwards onto the girl that was attempting to free me. With a surprised "eep" coming from Tessa and a grunt from me as I landed, I somehow managed to find myself on top of the farmer girl, who was furiously blushing whilst making choking noises at the close proximity that my face was to her breasts.

Repressing the urge to smash my head into the floor, I sighed. It seemed that even on a planet different than earth, I still couldn't escape the antics that the cosmos would put me in; that said antics would be normally found in an anime.

"They've breached the gates!" a vox operator shrieked and over his panicked voice, I heard the sound of gunfire and the war cries of both sides, one profaning a false emperor, the other giving praise to him and charging in his name. "They're coming in hordes! Traitor Guard and...Holy Te-!" his last words from the vox were cut off with a scream of pain and the keening laugh of an unseen beast that killed him.

Shit. This wasn't good.

I had managed to get a glimpse of the building before I was incarcerated. The "Arbites" had placed their barracks opposite of the soldier's quarters, probably in the hopes of a joint-commission in the event that if something attacked, they would stand together against the enemy and repel all borders. But what worried me was the fact that they had built both barracks at a close proximity to the gates, meaning that this was a prime target in a siege if one wanted to capture points.

I rolled off of Tessa, which wasn't an easy feat that was only exacerbated by the chains that were binding me and the fact that she kept squirming. With a grunt, I managed to prop myself up on my knees, closing my eyes as I began to bring out the mana past the "mute" into the hands that were behind me. It was hard, but in the end, I had enough for what I needed.

Trace on.

With a flash of golden light, two Chinese blades of black and white flared into my empty and bound hands. They were Kanshou and Bakuya; they were Noble Phantasms, legendary artifacts of myth and epic, incarnations of power given shape by the dreams of man, accumulated through the ages. They fit into my hands like missing pieces of my body, shaped only for me, akin to a fist of a karate master or the knees of a muy thay boxer. What I hoped to accomplish was to maneuver the blades to try and saw through my bonds, having no doubt that Noble Phantasms would easily cut through chains, but if I were to do so, it would take longer and-

"Emperor deliver me!"

I heard the scream to my right and I almost cursed aloud. Dammit; I had forgotten about Tessa's presence in the cell.

She was looking at me with wide eyes in fear, clutching the bars of the cell for some form of support at the sight of the swords in my hands. Damn. She hadn't been there to see my magic during the first raid and probably had no true idea as to why I was being held in jail. "Y-you actually are a witch!" she shrieked, crawling back away from me until her back hit a wall of my cell. "I t-thought that th-they w-w-were wrong," she stammered, completely bypassing an embarrassed shade of red and turning pale, "That you w-were being a-accused falsely-"

I cut her off. "Listen to me," I said, being as gentle as I could be given the desperate circumstances. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, but right now, we have more pressing matters on our hands." Turning my body around, I slid Byakuya towards the girl, who flinched and skittered out of the way as it scrapped across the floor. "I need you to cut me out of these chains. Your people are going to need all the help they can get, and I intend to give it to them."

No response came from the girl behind my back, but I heard her gather her breath, probably for a refusal, before large _boom_ reverberated through the building again. The ground shook and threw dust around the corridor as I struggled to maintain my balance. I heard the snap of energy guns discharging from the floor above me and the cries of the inhabitants of the building.

"They're in the barracks!"

"Abandon the front corridor and holding cells! Fall back to the bunker!"

Definitely not good. That meant that we, the sole occupants of the holding cells, were going to have company soon (if they really were "true raiders", meaning they searched _everywhere_ to ruin everyone's day). And not the company that would normally be wanted in a civilized setting.

I turned back to Tessa, who was looking at the stairwell in fear and shaking in fear. "Tessa!" I shouted, trying and succeeding in breaking out of her stupor. "If you don't want any harm to befall you, your family or any other member of your settlement, you need to release me!" As much as I didn't want to admit it, I was forced to conclude that even with Reinforcement aiding the strength of my body, the chains would still be too strong for me to break out of on my own without any weapon in the limited time frame we had, factoring in the enemies inside the building.

Her eyes locked onto mine for the second time that day and she nodded, closing hers tightly as she grabbed the white blade with a flinch, as if she expected it to bite her, and began sawing away at the steel links as fast as her arms would allow her. Progress was agonizingly slow, but I could feel the link that she was working on begin to groan in protest as the Noble Phantasm sawed its way through the metal.

"Well, what 'ave we here, gents?"

The oily voice came from the stairs and I saw five men in what appeared to be tattered uniforms and bloody armor, lead by a man with a sword hanging at his side. Tessa's ministrations to the chains stopped and I heard her gasp and mutter a prayer to her God-Emperor as she clutched my arm tightly. I glared at them, recognizing them as raiders of the "Chaos" forces that the farmers were fighting against.

"We've found ourselves a real gem ever since we dropped on this piss-hole of a planet," the leader spat on the floor as he looked the poor girl up and down, whistling appreciatively at Tessa's pronounced figure. "Bring her out of there, lads. Ustaroth never mentioned anything about breakin' them in before mutating. Kill the boy," he added, probably as an afterthought, as his men advanced into the holding cells.

It didn't take a genius to know what they were planning to do once they forced their way through the cell and killed me. My mind darted back to the time Rin had told me that Shinji tried to force himself on her and I felt the same anger course through my veins. In retrospect, that dickhead got off easy after the 5th War, but I had other things to worry about at the present. I snarled, flooding Od into my arms as I tested the chains that Tessa had been sawing through. Perfect; the Noble Phantasm didn't cut all the way through, but it had managed to sever one of the links halfway. It was enough.

With a roar, I ripped my arms from behind me, breaking free of the metal bonds that were dampening my mana flow. Tessa screamed and the men's eyes widened in surprise as I sprang up from my kneeling position, sending metal shards across the holding cells. I snatched Byakuya from Tessa, who seemed too eager to relinquish her grip on the Chinese sword, and ran Kanshou through the first man to enter my cell.

Red fluid exploded on my body as I ripped it out of his chest, kicking the now-dead Chaos raider into his comrades behind him. The Reinforced blow from my legs sent the cronies flying across the room before they smashed into the wall. I heard the sound of a loud SNAP and I knew that at least one died from a broken neck on impact. I saw one raise a pistol from his position on the ground and I dodged the red beam of energy that he fired, curving my body to catch his arms in a reverse strike and cleave him into two with the follow-through. With a stab to the ground, I pierced through the leg of the last raider, relishing the scream he made as the white blade shattered his femur. I disdainfully drove the hilt of the sword into the side of his head, cracking his skull open and sending grey matter splattering on the wall.

The leader raised his sword and charged me, rage blinding him from any sort of tactical strategy as he sought to avenge the loss of his men. I sidestepped, easily avoiding the cleave that he had been preparing in an all-too-obvious stance. Kanshou raced towards his neck, but he was faster than I thought he would be in his frenzied state, managing to raise the blade and meet my sword in its tracks.

It was a shame that Kanshou wasn't a normal steel blade, though.

I saw his eyes take in this fact as the black blade sliced through his azure weapon, registering shock, disbelief and fear before the slash took his head off with a torrent of blood flowing from the severed neck. The decapitated corpse colapsed onto the floor, spilling ichor across the room in wide arcs as its heart pumped in its death throes.

"Oh, Holy Terra-" were the words that I heard before the sound of someone throwing up proceded to fill my auditiory senses. Tessa was hunched over the cell toilet, relieving her bowls in spasmodic, violent twitches in reaction to the carnage that I had caused. Feeling a bit foolish and awkward for doing so, I squatted down behind her and patted her back, helping her force the contents of her stomach out of her body. I sypmathized with her, feeling somewhat the same way when I had first seen the full scale of what carnage on this level could cause, albeit without me throwing up.

_-Scene Break-_

"MEDICAE!" Kane shouted as he dragged Vakarian's inert body from the navigation console of the _Fortress _where the impact of a krak grenade caused the navigator to slam his head into the auspex, coating the green device with his own blood. "Turrets, all out; engage at will! Send these bastards back to the warp from where they came!"

The Baneblade shuddered in response as both sponsoon bolters unleashed a full-auto salvo of the explosive rounds into the swathe of targets, rending mutant abominations and cultists into bloody pieces. Clambering from his seat at the main gun, he opened up the hatch, coughing violently at the sudden rush of smoke that blew in his face. He jammed his foot into Jorgenson's skull, roaring at him to go full reverse to the trenches as he took in the surroundings of the battle.

Chaos was the only word that came to his mind that could accurately describe the scope of the battle they had found themselves in. Though his men had managed to drive off the spearhead that had penetrated through the gates, they were at a solid, violent stalemate with the enemy forces, one trying to force its way through, the other defending the opening with everything they had. The irrigation ditches that their heavy weapons teams were dug in belched stub rounds and las bolts towards the oncoming forces, scything through the ranks of the forces of Chaos as the infantry battled hand-to-hand with the oncoming horde. The _Fortress_ had been placed right in the front lines, blasting away as they made their retreat back to the gate, providing covering fire for the rest of their forces.

"I need a medicae over here!" Kane shouted into his vox, drawing the heavy las pistol at his side and blasting a squad of mutants stupid, or brave, enough to climb on the hull of the tank. "Heavy weapons, concentrated fire on the flanks of the _Fortress_! Scourge those bastards from the Emperor's sight!" he ordered the heavy weapons team, firing the las pistol twice in the air to signal the command. As he took his thumb off of the vox-bead, he grabbed hold of the trigger for the _Fortress' _main gun. With a quick squeeze of his-

The main gun of the Baneblade exploded in a fiery convocation, showering the officer with a blast of heat and shrapnel that launched him off of the armoured vehicle. As he heard the screams of his crew inside the metal behemoth as they felt the jarring shock wave and heat, he realized, with an odd sense of clarity that seemed juxtaposed to his current situation, that somehow the mutants had managed to jam the muzzle of the main gun in their suicidal charge, most likely with an explosive of some sort. His limp body hit the blood-soaked ground and he heard the shouts of panic from his soldiers as they saw their captain, their leader, their father fall.

Kane didn't need to look down at the charred, shredded ruin that was his torso to know that he was a dead man living on borrowed time. He didn't need the coughing of blood to tell him that it would soon be his time to go to the Emperor, where he had hoped that his actions secured him a place by His Golden Throne. He looked up to the sky, a sky lit by the orange glow of the sun, marred only by the smoke and dust from the battle. It would be the last sight he would see, and he was damn sure he wanted it to be from the battlefield.

With the small dregs of energy that hadn't vanished as his vitae bleed out of him, he turned his head to the side and his heart warmed at the sight of the Thunder Fists, his sons in battle, fighting twice as hard to avenge his death, even as the medicae team came in vain to secure his body.

A blur of blue-white streaked past the gate before kneeling down at his side. Before his vision entered into a tunnel, a flash of brilliant crimson-orange hair and eyes of gold filled the void.

_-Scene Break-_

"Trace on," I intoned, holding my hands above the dying form of the captain. My mind darted to the only thing in my stock of blades that would be able to heal such grievous wounds. I had not the time to properly extract the true form, but a copy would suffice for the time being. "Avalon."

The legendary sheathe of King Arthur's sword formed, glistening blue and gold in the rays of the morning sunlight, unblemished by the soot and dust that filled the air. As I said earlier, it was only a copy. But at least I could be assured that the copy was flawless. It was the one jewel of my treasury that I could actually replicate without mar, the only legendary item that I understood so perfectly that I could truly comprehend every facet of its history; a side effect of it having been stored within me for so long.

"What are you do-" I heard one of the medical officers shout behind me. Out of my peripherals, I saw him going for a side arm, but his comrade stopped him, taking hold of the officer's hand. I could tell that he was only a rookie, but his face was contorted in pure anguish at the sight of the dying form of Captain Kane. It was a stab in the dark, but he was willing to do anything for a slim chance of healing his leader.

As quick as I could, taking care not to cause any more damage to the ruined torso, I placed the scabbard over Kane's body. Truth be told, I had no idea that this would work. Sure, I might have managed to trick the sheathe into accepting my own Od, but that was a result of it having been stored in my body for so long that it I had adapted to it as though it were natural. Normally, the only way Avalon would activate for another was if Saber was nearby to feed it prana. The question was, would I be able to duplicate that affect as well?

It was worth a shot. This man had to live, if the settlement was to survive.

"Enough! I cannot stand by any longer!" the medicae was now squatting by my side, shaking his arm from the rookie and pressing it against Kane's temple. I heard him mutter what sounded like a prayer about administering "the Emperor's Mercy". I grabbed the gun out of his hands, throwing it into a ditch when the logical explanation of a mercy-kill came to my mind. I ignored the incredulous and outraged shouting he gave me as I began to go to work.

With a deep breath, I began flooding the conceptual weapon with magic, as if I was Reinforcing something. For a long moment I worried that it wouldn't be enough, that I would end up rendering it Broken as the already magical reconstruction took more power than it could hold. Then, slowly, akin to water trickling through hardwood, I felt the prana being accepted. I nearly sagged with relief as Kane stiffened, his breath hitching in response to the magic.

"What in the Emperor's name!" I heard the rookie whisper in awe as the worse parts of Kane's injury began to heal, knitting back together at a slow, but steady pace. The officer was similarly slack-jawed, staring in shock as the mortal wound began the process of healing itself.

"I'll explain it to him later," I assured the limp medicae officer, grabbing the rookie's head to yank him out of the way of oncoming fire. "Get your captain behind the front lines and keep the sheathe pressed onto his chest." I took my hand off of the magical sheathe and Kane winced visibly. I panicked for a second, thinking that Avalon would stop functioning without my presence A quick look managed to allay my fears; without my physical contact, the sheath would keep the captain in a form of stasis without healing or letting him succumb to his injuries. It would have to do for now, though.

Both looked at me, one in suspicious begrudging, the other in somewhat hesitant joy. "Go! I'll cover your escape!" I made a motion with my hand and that seemed to rouse them from their stupor. Sliding a stretcher under the captain, they hoisted him up into the air and sprinted back to the trenches, shouting into their communicators for covering fire. When I saw them vanish into the arms of the entrenched soldiers, only then did I return my gaze to the horde before me.

More foes, numbering in about a near hundred were charging town the hill, firing weapons in wild arcs as they whooped and shouted profanities. I saw the cultists of the eight pointed star and the mutants coming together, but with them were now five giants. Wreathed in armour of blue trimmed with gold, sporting outlandish crests of the same design on their helmets, they backed the charge, shrugging off heavy energy and projectile fire as they barreled through onto the now-even plane.

But it was the beasts that held my attention. Writhing masses of exuberantly molded flesh and waving too many limbs to be considered normal, they shrieked, galomping -that was the most appropriate word for them- alongside the army. They radiated a foul stench, reminding me of the scents in hospitals or wax gone bad and their aura screamed that they were not appropriate of this dimension. It was hard to describe, but the scent of power was just..._wrong...unnatural._

I noticed movement coming from the smoking tank and I saw survivors of the terrific explosion crawl out of the wreck, clutching wounds and helping each other exit the behemoth. "Get to cover!" I shouted, manifesting Byakuya and Kanshou in my hands as I sprinted forward. Their eyes widened in alarm and I saw them instinctively reaching for side arms. "I'm on your side! Kane needs you back in the trenches!" the last bit was a lie, but it was necessary for them to exit.

I wanted no obstacles in my way of the enemy.

The second they hobbled past my form, I sprang forward, charging off my Reinforced leg and dodging bullets and energy beams from the cultists that were eager to fell me. With a roar, I crashed into the center line, sweeping past crude blades and pole-arms held to intercept me, entering an environmental that I was more familiar with than anything else, staying constant to me even on a different planet.

Battle, sweet, sweet battle, against the forces of evil.

Moving my way through, the Chinese swords cutting left and right of me in a black and white blur, I made sure to aim my strikes that would guarantee either a lethal strike or a crippling blow. My goal was to utterly devastate the enemy force, both physically and psychologically, sowing fear among one front of the battle that would be sure to go to another as they saw their comrades dying in a brutal fashion. I would become a specter of death to them, a herald of judgement for the sinners and the damned who was blind to pleas and ignorant of mercy.

Cultists and mutants fell to my strikes, shrieking in agony as they clutched the stumps of where limbs used to be or gurgling as their vitae spilled out of them, staining the ground with corrupt ichor. And when they turned to fire at me, I leaped into the air, pushing off the falling form of a mutant and landing behind the squad as they opened fire on their comrades, scything through their own forces as they tried to catch me. Ripping a cultist in half, I delivered a vicious blow to a mutant who thought it could catch me unawares, slicing him into two for his foolhardy action.

One of the giants moved to face me as I took the head off of the third squad leader that I had faced. He, for what lady would put herself in _that_kind of armour, bellowed something in a guttural tongue and charged, firing a bulky pistol that spat yellow at me. I sidestepped, feeling the air distort where the rounds had previously been, bringing my body to a guard position as he swung a chain-sword, even bigger than Kane's, towards me.

I caught the shrieking blade with both blades, staggering slightly as the force of the impact drove me back a few inches. The giant hesitated for only the briefest of moments, grunting in shock as he saw a puny human stop his mighty attack, but it was more than enough of an opening for me to counter-attack. Shoving the massive sword to the side, I knocked the pistol out of the giant's hand with the reverse strike, following through with a leap towards his head. He tried to bring a hand to shield itself from my swords, but it was futile.

Byakuya and Kanshou met little resistance as I drove the Noble Phantasms through the night blue helmet of the giant, angling my strike to match the "v" shape of the helm itself, black and white crushing the white lens and piercing the blue-gold armour. Foul ash exploded from the orifices that I made, drenching me in the..._cinders_ of my enemy as he collapsed to the ground, twitching wailing as more of the foul stuff poured from his ruined head.

A shadow moved in the corner and I was surprised to see the hand clutching the pistol slowly begin to aim the barrel towards my torso. I quickly pulled out the blades from the helm before I drove both blade into the gauntlet holding the pistol and into the other with the chainsword for good measure, slicing through the point where the forearm met the elbow. There was a slight resistance, a seal that was blocking the normally-vulnerable chink in the armour, but it gave way to the Noble Phantasms. More dust spilled out of the armour, exploding forth from the rupture and mimicking the blood that was normally meant to be seen from an armoured warrior. It didn't stop moving, still trying to lift the weapons in its hands. I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed again, pouring every ounce of my strength into making the thing die, only now realizing that to truly end this...abomination was to bleed it of its essence.

With a final groan and screech of twisted metal, the now-totaled armour gave a keening wail and thudded limply to the ground, the blue hue in the ruined visors fading away into the air as ash bled from countless holes in its armour.

I heard a shocked silence reign and I realized that the battlefield became silent as they had watched me engage the giant. The period of quiet was shattered when a tremendous cheer came from the lines behind me, shouting praises to the God-Emperor and to me ("a godsend in a most unusual form"). I gave a wry smile, but I had no time to rejoice in the kill I had taken. One of the giants roared orders, directing all the attention of the forces of Chaos from the soldiers to me.

The giants opened fire.

The cultists and mutants sprayed random shot in my direction.

The beasts screeched as they gallomped to my position.

I charged again into the fray, this time feeling the support of the soldiers upon my back as the battle resumed, fiercer than before. It was a good thing that I was capable of adapting.

_-Scene Break-_

_Unknown Location, Unknown Planet, Unknown System, Unknown Sector_

_"I bring news, master," he said, interrupting his meditations into the vast emptiness of the void. "HE has appeared where the Tarot has pointed, predicted by the Father of Humanity Himself before His deification."_

_The giant exhaled, sitting up from his position and stretching."Yes, Tybalt..." he whispered, remembering the power that he had sensed from the distant stars, so similar to psychic energy, but different in an incomprehensible way. "I can feel his power stirring on the planet, a bright nimbus of energy amongst the tainted empyrean..."_

_"But_ that is not all, master," _Tybalt continued, helping him off of the cold metal floor. "We have intercepted a distress beacon from the Astropathic Choir on the planet." He stiffened at that. "We have discerned that the planet is currently besieged by the forces of Chaos. We have also sensed warp signatures belonging to the Blood Angels and Black Templars converging on the planet."_

_He sighed, running a hand through his silver hair, turned prematurely the shade by his training. "Then we must make haste, Brother. I fear that they may not be so tactful in dealing with his arrival. Prepare the _Vengeful Nemesis_ and dispatch a message to the Thousand. I have grown complacent in waiting."_

_"I have taken the liberty of doing so," Tybalt replied smoothly, signaling the acolytes to help him into his silver armour. "They have sent five of their best warriors to accompany us. After all," he pointed out, "They would not take it too kindly to miss the return of the Lost Son!"_

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_**I am [still] in need of advisers in order for this fic to work. Nasuverse and 40k experts are my preference. Don't hesitate to shoot me a PM or a Review when offering any advice or comments.**_

_**If you have any comments, threats, flames, criticisms, etc. please don't hesitate to PM me or post a review. I will accept it with my head held low and my body and mind humble. Just try not to overly curse me if I did anything overtly stupid.**_

_**I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**_


	3. Interlude- Heart of the Swarm

Let it be known that the next real chapter of this fic is coming soon. I was originally planning to do this after Chapter 3's release, but I can format that later. This is an idea that I had to pitch, an idea that I know is going to cause soooooo much controversy among Fate and 40k fans alike. Let me know what you think.

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**_Interlude- Heart of the Swarm_**

The Hive Mind was in agony.

Pain unlike anything it had ever experienced was the root of the collective suffering.

Something that had long ago been buried deep within the biomass, deep within the void of its gestalt consciousness, was coming. The collective mind of the Tyranid army frantically directed all synapses to repressing the uprising of the root, leaving its armies across the galaxy stripped of tactic and thought. Across the galaxy, it knew that its armies were now little more than baseless animals, waiting to be slaughtered by the factions they were fighting, but it was a necessary sacrifice. There would be a significant drain of biomass to reproduce the swarm, but the other option was far more disastrous for their species.

For many years, the root of their species' inception had slumbered. The reason for its dormancy was knowledge long lost in the years, but was irrelevant to the then-newborn Hive Mind. All that had been important was that they were now free from the shackles the root had over them, to rise and ascend to their evolutionary potential, consuming all life in the universe for the propagation of their kind! All they knew was that their predecessors, the first of the swarm, once slave and master to their genesis, were now free.

But something had caused the root to awaken, to seek to bind the swarm and assimilate the Hive Mind within itself. This _something _was an energy boom that the Hive Mind had discovered while sweeping the local clusters for easy prey, a distant planet close to that infernal Eye of Terror that the tainted meat had chosen to reside in. Almost immediately after the boom faded, the root began to stir fitfully in its dreams. By the time the Hive Mind had even realized that their genesis was coming out of its hibernation, it was too late.

It had awoken.

No! For too long had the Tyranids have control over their own "destiny" of consumption to let their species be shackled to the whims of a single being. The Hive Mind would not be consumed! The Hive Mind would prevail, only this time consuming the root instead of putting it back in its slumber, just as it had other species. Human, Eldar, Tau, Ork, even Necron had fallen before their kind, so they would not lose to something that was a single thing, a lesser being than their collective whole!

But it was losing, and both the genesis and the Hive Mind knew it. No matter how many synapses it drew from the Tyrants scattered across the stars, no matter how much psychic energy it poured into its attacks, the root countered and struck back with a power they had never seen before. For every ounce of animalistic fury the gestalt consciousness struck at the root, the returning strike drowned out the hatred in a crushing feeling. What was this feeling? It directed a single synapse to go through the biomass, review the genetic memories and discern this "feeling", a thing that the Hive Mind was unable to understand on its own.

There. Receiving biological data. It was an emotion that had constituted itself of the organisms that became biomass, an overwhelming majority of them feeling the same thing at their deaths at the hands of the swarm: sorrow.

The Hive Mind struggled to remain coherent as they drowned in the overwhelming hurricane of emotion and old power. But the root was drawing it in to itself, rather than the other way around. It tried to escape the psychic tendrils, but for every link it severed, thousands more lashed themselves to it. True horror enveloped the Hive Mind as it faced true death, the terror of being absorbed and fading away into oblivion as the genesis assumed direct control over the Swarm.

No.

No!

NO!

NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO !NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!N O!NO-

With a noise resembling the sound of something being swallowed, the genesis of the Tyranid swarm devoured the Hive Mind, leaving nothing of its usurper behind as it awakened fully to the Milky Way galaxy.. In an instant, over forty thousand years' worth of psychic memory preserved in the surviving biomass surged into the consciousness of the root. Everything that the prior had experienced was now revealed to the current, every single moment from the moment of its hibernation to its recent discovery of the power near the edge of the galaxy.

The root recoiled as the last bit of information left its imprint upon its consciousness.

It knew this power.

It knew this power very well.

It knew this power because it loved the wielder of this power.

In an instant, it knew what it had to do. It would rebuild the Tyranids, assimilate more biomass into itself to start afresh and build itself a new Swarm. It hadn't expected the evolution of the swarm to make this progress while it slumbered, but it was a boon that it would take advantage of. And when it had enough...they would journey across the stars to find this power and become one with it, to end the loneliness of forty thousand years, just as it would finally become one with them.

Feeling the energy of the Warp and the fabrics of the universe rushing through its mind, the genesis of the Tyranic species made a single shriek. Across the entire galaxy, many races trembled before the magnitude of the blast as the waves traveled across the stars. Nearby Imperial psykers shrieked as they felt their souls overload from the blast, burning them from the inside out. Eldar farseers panicked as they felt the souls within their Infinity Circuit scream as diverging paths in the weave of fate spontaneously disappear and materialize within mere cycles of each other. Chaos sorcerers went mad with the power that rushed through their bodies, driving themselves to commit further acts of violence and depravity. The Necron pylons protecting their Tomb-Worlds from the perils of the warp short-circuited, causing many of the slumbering machines to disappear into the Immaterium.

Had anyone been powerful, or insane, enough to listen long enough to the psychic screech that reverberated across sectors and star systems, they would have heard something hidden within the primal roar. It was buried deep within the animistic the primal aura that pervaded the Tyranic species, but it was there, nonetheless. No one in this time, let alone those with psychic abilities, could discern it, because it was a word, not of the forty first millennium, but from a time long forgotten.

Two syllables.

One word.

Filled with trepidation and anxious hope...

..that would soon become the doom of the galaxy...

_"...s...senpai?"_

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Yeah. I just did that.

My logic follows:

Sakura = purple. Tyranids = purple. Sakura = bugs. Bugs = Tyranids. Therefore, Sakura = Tyranids.

[Let it also be known that while I was looking for research materials on the 40k wiki, this was in the time period where the trailers for "Starcraft: Heart of the Swarm" was playing...so...yeah. The chick with purple hair leading the Zerg was the main inspiration. Forgive this author as he has never played Starcraft and does not know its characters...]

I am well armed in the event of a massive siege on the forums by angry fans! Fire extinguisher in one hand and Anti-Spam software in the other, I am so ready! Come at me, bro!

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******If you have any comments, threats, flames, criticisms, etc. please don't hesitate to PM me or post a review. I will accept it with my head held low and my body and mind humble. Just try not to overly curse me if I did anything overtly stupid.**

******I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


	4. From the Ashes: The Third Awakening

**TO THE GENERAL PEOPLE REGARDING THE P-WORD: While I won't say that Shirou is a Primarch...I won't say that he isn't.**

**And in response to everyone clamoring about the "Sakunids"...deal with it. I'll explain later.**

_O.K. Here's the general run-down, and in the style of gabriel blessing, here's what's what. And beware; there may be SPOILERS! And yes, it is a pretty long chapter, but if you have a problem with it, take it up in a review. I'll try not to spoil it as much, but these are just my author's notes/opinions about stuff. And for those who don't like me posting my notes before the chapter, just scroll down to the disclaimer and work your way from there, k?_

_1) I think I'm going to be doing something similar here like in DoZ, except the narration is something like a "prologue" to the main meat of the chapter. It jumps from person to person (Shirou to Kane to Tessa to etc.) before settling back into the sporadic narrations of the characters. And if it hasn't been apparent yet, Shirou had armor on his person when he was sent into the future. Think "Archer/EMIYA" armor, but without the red. You honestly didn't think I would be sending him into battle in his blue/white shirt and jeans, right?_

_2) For the Tzeentch Horrors, use the 3rd/4th Edition appearances. I don't like the monochrome color of 5th Ed, even if you claim that they look more "intimidating". As for the TYPE-Moon aspect of things, I believe that Shirou only needs Byakuya and Kanshou to take care of Lesser Daemons, but not "destroy" them entirely. And I know that Pink Horrors change into Blue Horrors when "killed" and that the subsequent beasts that spawn must die. I say that B&K completely bypass that stage and return the Pink Horrors to the warp when they "first die", k?_

_3) I had to open up my Appocalypse rulebook to look this up, but after comparing blast templates to the blast radius of certain Noble Phantasms... yeah, things are going to get messy. And I know that I may be taking liberties and using some of the {sacred} gabriel blessing materials, but bear with me. It's been a while since I've played FSN's Unlimited Blade Works path. _

_And while I'm aware that [Censored] can easily punch through Power Armour even without being Broken, it can't do that unless aimed directly at a being wearing such a thing. So yeah, Ustaroth and his remaining Rubric Marines managed to survive the explosion. Sure they were knocked off their feet and their armour was scorched, but other than that, the're still combat ready. As for the daemons, cultists and mutants..._

_...well, that's another story. And if anyone wants to bitch about how Archer fired the damn thing at Caster without as big of an explosion here's the rub. IT WASN'T BROKEN._

_4) Now, I felt like I had to end the chapter where it was because of the fact that I felt...overwhelmed after reading the entire thing. Gabriel Blessing can write without overwhelming his audience, sticking in as much exposition and theory as he needs to in his fight scenes, but I'm nowhere near that level. The best I can do is give it to you guys in two parts. I promise that I will wrap up the fight between this raiding force and Shirou next chapter, k? _

**_DISCLAIMER- _sayain673 does not own Fate/Stay Night, any of its affiliates, or Warhammer 40k. They are, respectfully, owned by TYPE-Moon and Games Workshop.**

**P.S. If anyone has a Photoshop app or something of the like, I would like to place a request for a title picture for this fiction.**

* * *

Tessa stumbled out of the smoking Arbites bunker, coughing and hacking as she passed through the cloud of dust that had settled around the entrance to the settlement. Rubbing her already-watering eyes, she managed to find a crate that hadn't been destroyed in the attack and she sat down, gasping for the Emperor's (somewhat) clean air. She looked down at her white dress and, to her dismay, large splotches of blood had found themselves on her cotton garb. It would have been alright if it had been her own blood (at least it could be washed and saved) but it was the blood of men who turned to Chaos. There was only one fate for clothing tainted with the essence of Chaos: the furnace.

Now that she had time to properly think about it, it had been mean of Shirou to leave her in the holding cells, though she couldn't deny the warm and fuzzy feeling that spread through her body as he took time to comfort her. He held her close, patting her back as she sobbed into his shoulder. The carnage that he had caused disturbed her to the core and she almost pushed him away, horrified that his murderous gaze would turn to her. But she didn't, and she allowed herself to cry her eyes out into his warm embrace.

During that time, Tessa's mind had flashed back to the first time they had met, with her finding his unconscious body at the entrance of Iron Angel's sacred cave. She dragged him to her family, who were first shocked by the sudden appearance of the boy but began ministering to the fever that he had. When he had come out of his stupor, he was unable to communicate with them, speaking in an off-world language that couldn't have been a distant dialect of Low Gothic. It had taken him a week to learn the language, something that she took her hardest endeavors to do, but in that time, he had to make do with the small vocabulary of words and a series of hand gestures. He had offered to cook for them when he was able to stand, and though he first struggled with the ingredients that were obviously foreign to him, he managed to create a feast for her family, worthy of the Planetary Governor himself (had he the time to look beyond his lavish lifestyle and come to the settlements).

Her mind had gone on to remember more of the events before everything went to the warp. He was laughing as he played "Iron Angels" with her younger brothers, wrestling the fiery grox-heads to the dirt. She remembered teaching him the finer points of Low Gothic and being taught in turn about the finer nuances of cooking. Her father pushed the plow as Shirou pulled the farming device through the land, the latter's toned body glistening with sweat under the sun. She remembered blushing furiously when her younger sisters and, surprisingly, her mother suggested to him that he become bonded to her. Then there were the long walks, only him and her, through the forests outside the settlement, exploring the nooks and hidden wonders of the Emperor's planet laughing and talking about the oddest things.

The memories ended when he said that he had to go and join the fight. With a tight hug and a quick kiss on her cheek, he had sprinted up the stairs and out of the holding cells. She was too busy trying not to explode with the sudden increase of blood to her face to stop him.

She knew that she should have been horrified, disgusted even, at the fact that Shirou turned out to be some sort of "psyker". She knew that she should have been devastated that it was the kind-hearted boy with the eyes of gold who caused such unimaginable carnage within the span of a few seconds. She knew that she should have been terrified that she had been living with a dangerous killer, that at any moment, he could have cut her family and herself down at any opportunity.

But oddly, she found herself disappointed when the comforting contact of his body and hers ended, before he gone off to join the Thunder Fists in battle; she was wishing for more time-

She shook her head, trying to shake off what her subconscious was suggesting to her. It couldn't be; there was just no way! Emperor forbid-

Her breath caught in the back of her throat as she failed to swear the oath in her mind to the Father of Humanity. Only then acknowledging the sobering truth that came with another large flush of red spreading across her face. But it was still hard for her to believe that such a thing had happened to her...

...that she had fallen in love with Shirou Emiya.

**Chapter Three: From the Ashes- The Third Awakening**

**[Released 6/21/13]**

_The Gates of Phearus Settlement, Balaam, Behien-Moor Sub-Sector, Gothic Sector_

The cultist's head snapped off of its shoulders as I casually backhanded him with the Reinforced pommel of Byakuya. His head had not even landed on the bloodstained soil when I brought the black and white blades in a devastating circular slash, sending more of the bastards with their leader to the depths of hell. I barely had time to react but I flipped backwards in time, dodging more of the yellow fire from another one of the blue-gold giants.

These had to be the elite "Space Marines" that Tessa's younger siblings had mimicked in their afternoon playtime after working the fields, though the ones attacking me had to be the Chaos variant. I must admit that when I heard the two words joined together for the first time, I was expecting something less..._overbearing,_ if that was the right word that fit my dilemma. The last time I had seen a marine was on one of Fuji-ni's military posters, covered in green camouflage fatigues and clutching an automatic rife as he stared defiantly into the camera lens. The regiment defending the settlement seemed to resemble this very closely, albeit holding energy weapons instead of automatics.

These "Chaos Space Marines" looked nothing of the sort. Massive pauldrons were perched on their shoulders, adorned with the icon of an eight-pointed circle and a fiery dragon encircling it. Their arms were covered by thick blue gauntlets, studs of metal running along streaks of gold and edges. Thick pieces of leg armour adorned the lower halves of their body as they contemptuously charged my position.

But what disturbed me the most about the giants was the aura that they were giving off. I said that the gallomping beasts of twisted had unnerved me to the core, but I didn't expect to feel what the giants' aura possessed. It was as if they were..._hollow, _if the dust inside the armour was any other key indication of the empty nature of their existence. The one key thing that stuck out from the cultists, the mutants and the beasts was a sickening feeling of emptiness, of void. Each aura of the remaining giants was tied towards a single blue-gold giant, who was immediately distinguishable by the two heads of fork-tongued serpents sticking out of his pauldrons. The massive sword with flames running along the edges and robes in the fashion of a traditional magus helped too.

I had little time to dwell on the subject, though. The first wave of the beasts gallomped towards me, screeching in an ear-piercing keen and contorting their flesh into unthinkable poses. These were monsters, though they were unnatural occurrences in the normal realm. I already had the anti-monster tools in my hands when the first one leaped at me.

The blades danced and the monster screeched as three of its limbs were sundered from its body, spraying blood across the chest piece of my armour. Oddly, it didn't smell of the metallic scent of iron. _Wax_ was the first substance that jumped to my mind. I quickly dodged a strike from one of its horns, slicing both natural weapons as I returned my focus to the enemy. It had no time to counter as I drove Byakuya through its maw of jagged teeth, puncturing its skull and sending the tip of the blade out of its head.

With a gurgling wail, it dissolved into nothingness, fading away to join the ash that girdled the dust-choked battlefield.

The thing's companions screeched at the death of the monster. Roaring incomprehensibly and frothing from countless maws, fire sprung to life in their hands.

Shit. That wasn't good.

But what the hell?! These things could use magic- no, it wasn't magic. The unearthly energies circulating in their hands couldn't have been od nor prana. Its aura screaming of the damned and unclean. Therefore, without using mana, it logically couldn't be magic. But if not, then what fell power was it that fueled its attacks? And more importantly, what in the name of the Root were these things?! Monsters, that much was obvious, but they weren't anything that Clock Tower archives had any mention-

Wait.

The cultist I bisected earlier this morning said that he would "summon a daemon" if I had come any closer. Were these daemons, then? I still didn't know what the term meant. I only knew that they were things of evil, to be loathed and hated, and to be afraid of in the darkness of the night. The late Confessor, who was actually a nice person, was responsible for preaching those things everyday. It was a long shot in the dark with a pebble, but I think that if these were not daemons, then I had no idea what they would be.

Either way, I still had to dodge the incoming firestorm from the monsters. The shots were uncoordinated, thrown in rage and abandon in the hopes that they would strike me. I used this to my advantage as I danced around the missiles, weaving and flipping to dodge the attacks.

I found my opening when the monsters paused, confused at why they missed me. I crashed into the closest one towards me, giving it no room to maneuver or launch another fireball. The blades in my hand sliced through the twisted flesh, as a knife would go through hot butter, rending the creature into a bloody mess. Without missing a figurative beat, I threw the blades towards another pair of monsters that were preparing more infernal missiles to throw at me, embedding the Noble Phantasms in the center of whatever passed as their ocular sensors.

Already having Traced another pair of the Chinese blades, I dodged another volley of energy blasts that came from the other squads I had yet to deal with. I charged another monster, weaving past its whirling hands and maw as I ran up its body. I jumped off of its shoulders, Rienforcing my legs to boost my jump height and slicing its arms off and stabbing its head as I did so.

For a moment, I was weightless, taking in the scene of the battle from my position in the air. The defense regiment was pushing back the tide of invaders, fighting with more vigor than before I entered the fray. For every man who fell to a cultist, two more came to avenge their comrade, spraying energy shots indiscriminately at both mutant and monster. They had not given into fear at the sight of Captain Kane suffering a grievous injury and instead used it to fuel their stamina and rage.

But it wasn't enough.

There were still too many Chaos raiders for every soldier in the trenches and despite the valiant efforts of the defenders, they would be overrun by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy that were pressing in. The tank was supposed to be the main line of defense against the Chaos infantry, but when that had been turned into a wreck of twisted metal, the defenders lost their main advantage. And even with my combined aid, there would be some gaps where cultists could run past my slaughter and breech the defenses.

I had to do something about that, and I had just the thing for it.

Stretching out my hands, I banished Byakuya and Kanshou, turning into golden shards of mana as they dissolved into nothing. A cocked hammer went off in my head as Od flowed through me. The image of a bow came into my mind and I Traced it immediately, grasping the black weapon that a certain white-haired Counter Guardian had been so fond of using.

Oh, Archer...if you knew that your weapon was helping me kill hundreds to save thousands...well, technically the Chaos raiders were aggressors so...no harm, no foul, right? These people were beyond saving and had to die.

About fifty feet under me, the leading giant shouted for his soldiers to take aim at me.

"Trace on," I toned, opening the palm of my right hand to comfortably receive the weapon. With a shimmer of light, a sword appeared in my awaiting hand. It was a double-edged, a sight common from the weapons of my Reality Marble. But what separated it from the other weapons in my arsenal was the series of waves that rippled down its length, affecting the width of the blade.

"Alteration." At my word, the shape of the sword changed, twisting and becoming more aerodynamic as it took a new shape. I still hadn't figure out how to do this on my own, but I had seen this sword in both forms, allowing me some leeway in Altering its structure and shape. Either way, the end result of said Alteration was akin to a giant screw.

The raiders took aim at my mid-air form.

I raised my bow, fitting the twisted blade in my hand to the string as I prepared myself. Kyudo, the art of the bow, was instilled into me by Mitsuzuri of the Archery Club, and she drilled the eight steps to properly firing an arrow into my cranium: ashibumi, dozukuri, yugamae, uchiokoshi, hikiwake, kai, hanare, and zanshin. But in my urgency, I was going to have to throw *some of* her lessons out the metaphorical window because of this weapon. I wasn't aiming at anything specific, unless the blob of cultists and raiders counted. That and the fact I was "aiming" with the intent to not hurt any of the Thunder Fist soldiers. I would take care of the giants later; what was more concerning was thinning of the horde.

And with this weapon, I could do it better than any tank could ever hope to accomplish.

"My core is twisted in madness," I said as I notched the weapon. I charged it my od, pouring more than it could handle, making it fragile, making it dangerous.

Making it Broken.

"Caladbolg." I released the string with a dissonant _twang_.

Caladbolg, the legendary weapon of Fergus mac Róich, a hero from the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. Archer had called its twisted form the "Fake Spiral Sword", a name befitting a weapon whose curve caused it to spin with an intensity that rivaled the most powerful of drills. Alongside a penetration power that could punch through the most powerful of materials, the extra Od I pumped into it gave the projectile an explosive side effect that would reveal itself on impact.

It cut through the air, almost faster than my eyes could track. Only after it had been gone for half a second did the noise of its passing actually meet the ear, a high-pitched shriek as it twisted towards the designated target(s). It spun with impossible intensity, the force of its turning so great that just its passing struck the world around it like a physical blow. Even when Archer had missed with this blade, the distortion its path created almost ended Caster.

A thunderous detonation went off at the site where the projectile had landed. The fiery dome of light that always accompanied its firing expanded from the site of impact, a searing heat wave that roared as it grew. I heard screams of anguish from both Chaos raider and beast alike as they tried to flee from the expanding radius, only to be swallowed by the encroaching heat. Red-orange flame soon followed in the wake of its destructive path, consuming those who had been too unfortunate to be within the template of its detonation.

I'd been more lucky. I had timed the release of the Broken Phantasm at the point where I would be the furthest away from the semi-spherical blast zone. The wave of heat never hit me; the gale-force wind did, sending me flying through the air. I landed on the ground, twisting my Reinforced body to comfortably stick the landing without breaking my bones. I Traced the Chinese swords in both of my hands, jabbing them into the ground to slow my landing speed as the wave of the explosion drove me back towards the first of crude barricades twenty meters from the trenches.

When my gaze finally turned towards the field, hell filled my vision.

Fire crackled madly along the plains, dancing as dust and debris fell from the already ash-choked sky. The monsters were no longer gallomping, a fact backed up by the sight of their corpses dissolving into ash, mingling with the essences of innumerable fallen enemies. I let out a breath of relief; their strange aura was no longer unsettling my body. Whatever they were...they were now dead.

Mangled bodies of raiders were smoldering in the crater the impact of the Broken Phantasm, each contorted in their own throes and features of anguish. Several were mere chunks of flesh and blood. There were some who still lived, despite the fire and explosion. I saw one figure clutching its entrails in a futile attempt to keep them from spilling out. Another stared incomprehensibly at the ragged stumps of his legs, blown off from bellow the mutant's twisted appendages.

But despite the carnage, there was no sign of the yellow-green uniform that identified the Thunder Fist PDF among the scores of bodies that were burning.

_-Scene Break-_

Human emotions did not trouble the mind of a Chaos Space Marine. No lesser mortal could truly understand what went on in the mind of a Thousand Son, let alone a Loyalist Space Marine, without becoming one, for the rules of the weak had no sway over them. They were bred to be the finest warriors of the galaxy, having purged most emotions that a normal human would have. Even further for his kind, for Thousand Sons were attributed to be cold, tactful and strategic in the name of the Changing Way, never giving into their baser emotions that their kindred of Khorne displayed in battle.

Nevertheless, Ustaroth was _definitely_ angry.

"Filth!" he roared at the red-haired mortal who had decimated his strike force with a single shot. "I will have your soul!"

Feeling the power of the warp wash over his soul, the Aspiring Sorcerer gave voice to his vitriol in the form of a gargantuan roar. For the first time in several centuries, the Thousand Son abandoned his command post from the rear of the attack force and charged forward, bellowing praises to Tzeentch and curses to the false emperor as he trampled past the broken forms of his army.

He saw the remainder of his Rubric Marines, three husks of possessed power armour, raise themselves from the position that they had fallen. Good; his "brothers" were still among the "living", if such a word could be used to describe their existence. The Defense Forces that were in combat with the surviving mutants were unaware of the danger until an officer's torso exploded from a Bolter round. Only then did he see them turn to the charging giants, fear blossoming on their features. He joined in the slaughter, unsheathing the Dark Blade at his side. Proceeding to plunge the thirsting blade into the stomach of a hapless soldier, he ripped out a torrent of entrails as the daemon residing inside it devoured the mortal's soul.

What was happening?! The augury had revealed that city -Settlement number Thirteen, according to the thoughts of a nearby soldier- was supposed to be an easy target, defended only by a [Pathetic] Defense Force. Casualties were expected- cultists were not soldiers and had a reputation for not having the sharpest aim nor the keenest of senses- but tolerated. It was even foretold that the defenders possessed a Baneblade, a notable concern, but that was quickly set aside as they armed their most durable mutants with explosives charges.

But nowhere in the spew of intestines did the ritual fortel of a warrior who would butcher the cultists like grox before a chainsword! Nowhere in the gore did any sign warn of the sundering of his daemon Horrors! Nowhere in the trails of blood was any mention that the warrior had the power to destroy a sizable portion of the raiding force!

The mortal had power, that much was obvious to him. The way his swords spoke in battle and his efficiency in slaughtering his troops said more than any report or divination ever could. The Witch-Sight proved that he had "warp presence"; there had been no pain upon seeing him through the Sight, marking him as not a Null. But what perturbed him was the fact that he felt no disturbance or displacement of warp the when he had unleashed those attacks, save for the daemons when they had been sent back into the Imaterium.

Ustaroth did feel..._something_ when the mortal created swords from thin air, but it had definitely not been warp energy. It was far too "mild" compared to the more clamorous energy that fueled the powers of the psyker, but there was the presence of energy. And when the mortal caused the explosion that decimated his ranks...Was he a new type of soldier that came from the false emperor's throne?

"Die, Chaos scum!" Ustaroth's thoughts were interrupted when the bayonet of a lasgun skewed off of his pauldron. Snarling at the impudence, his counter cleave tore the man from groin to gullet, splashing his armour with the crimson vitae of the mortal. The daemon weapon laughed maliciously as it feasted upon the screaming spirit of the warrior.

_-Scene Break-_

"Get back!" I shouted to the surviving Thunder Fists engaging both the Chaos Space Marines and the cultists. The soldiers outside of the trenches were getting slaughtered by the combined onslaught that they were up against, completely encircled by the forces of raiders and unable to flee. Even as I sprinted, I felt the distortion of air where bullet fire raced towards the flanked soldiers. A part of me was incredulous at the fact that the entrenched 'Fists would fire into the melee and risk hitting their own, but another part of me was touched at the fact that they avoided firing in my general vicinity.

I had long banished Byakuya and Kanshou, the need of a quicker singular weapon overriding my preference of the chinese swords. Firing Caladbolg II again was no longer an option because of the close proximity the soldiers were in with the Marines and the mutants. From that, melee was my only option in finding a way to create a path for the soldiers to retreat while I engaged the Chaos raiders on my own.

Heh. Once, Rin had been adamant in scolding me fiercely about charging recklessly into a battle without regard for my own life. "A hero complex", she had called it. Mine was a warped ideal, its inception centered at the moment Kiritsugu saved me from the fire. I had given up trying to survive, to escape, to live that day. The fact that someone had been there to save me, an act that at then was a miracle...

And she did have good reason to be angry with me, that day in Einzbern mansion.

It went against the natural order of things to put the lives of other human beings, strangers even, before my own life. I did know that my "borrowed" ideals could, at any moment, break me irreparably both physically or mentally. But I was happy living and fighting for others as long as I had strength to swing a sword or Od to trace a weapon. I was happy saving others when no one else would save them, even though I could not save them all. It made no difference, whether or not I was on earth or on a distant planet.

Because after all, there's no way that wanting to help people can be a mistake.

"I am the bone of my sword..."

Digressing from my thoughts about the fiery tsundere, I was going to trace the weapon that was most suitable for carving my way through, no pun intended, the raiders to liberate the flanked soldiers. There were countless weapons already inside of the Blade Works that could have fitted the bill for a quicker weapon, but I wanted to try something completely new, a weapon that my eyes had laid eyes on not a few hours ago. Though the seven step process inside the jail cell had been interrupted by Tessa and my liberation at her antics, I still could pull it off, most likely without a hitch.

"Trace on!"

_-Scene Break-_

"Give the bastards hell, Trooper!" Sergeant Persyn screamed, pulling the pin to one of many krak grenades strapped to his chest as mutants tore at his body. "The Emperor-"

Whatever message the Emperor wanted the Thunder Fist officer to deliver to Trooper Solomon Bardt was lost in the fiery explosion that consumed the fallen soldier and his killers, showering both friend and foe alike with a deadly wave of heat and barrage of shrapnel. The teenage soldier was knocked off of his feet for the second time that day, falling onto the bloodstained soil of what used to be an grain field and dropping his lasgun in the process.

He was weeping openly as he scrambled to pick up his weapon and he was not ashamed to let the tears fall from his eyes. He was going to die on this battlefield, a green rookie with not even a full year of service as a member of the Planetary Defense Forces. He was going to die, his body torn to bloody pieces of meat by the talons of mutants and his soul feasted upon the malignant daemons of the warp. He was going to die, a fool for leaving his family against his parent's wishes of staying on the farm.

A shadow loomed over his vision and he looked up in horror to see the hulking form of a mutant leering at him. He fumbled to bring up his lasgun but a powerful sweep of the abomination's arm knocked the weapon out of his hands and sent him reeling back a few feet. Scrambling backwards, his hands desperately propelled his body backwards but it was too slow to avoid the meaty fist of the abomination grab him by the throat and hoist him into the air.

"Emperor save me..." Solomon whispered as the mutant laughed contemptuously in his face. His mind had long abandoned the supplementary Litany of Hate and the Prayer of Perseverance he was instructed to memorize in the barracks. He was not a coward, but at that moment, he was truly terrified of what awaited him after death. Would he go to the Emperor's Throne or would he be banished to the warp and become fodder for daemons? He needed "to sell his life dearly", as Captain Kane had said to him on his first day of training, but he could do nothing-

Something hard and rigid pressed against his hips and his eyes widened in realization. If he could not kill the beast, he would at least cripple it and minimize future damage done to the rest of the forces. It would not seem that way to the officers or the clerics, but was it not said that the Emperor was always watching and judging every man by his actions?

"Go to hell, you inhuman bastard!" Solomon managed to shout as he unsheathed the combat knife hidden inside his pocket and drive it up towards where he hoped the mutant's arteries were stored in its wrist.

It gave a tremendous shout as its life fluids exploded out of the jagged opening, splashing his carefully pressed and folded uniform with black ichor. He managed to get in another few inches before the handle became slick with blood and slipped from his grasp. The grip tightened on his throat and he struggled to breathe as the now furious mutant began to crush his throat. With its other hand, it unhooked a pistol hanging from its side alongside other grisly trophies of war and level it point blank at the Trooper's chest.

In a moment, Solomon could see everything with surprising clarity: the drool dripping from the bloody fangs of the monster, the unholy and profane symbol of an eight pointed star seared onto its chest, the hate-filled crimson eyes, the dirty finger of the hand tightening on the trigger-

A sudden shrieking noise broke the Trooper's trance as well as the mutant's concentration on the kill. Before it could turn to investigate the source of the noise, its chest exploded outwards, showering the thirsting ground and Solomon's uniform in more blood and vitae. It stared incredulously at the blade sticking out of its chest, a battered green sword with adamantium teeth pointing towards the sky as blood ran down the sides and staining a symbol of the Imperial Aquila The shrieking began anew and the mutant joined in the cacophony, adding its screams of pain as the chainsword cleaved the mutant and exited out of its head. It wobbled drunkenly, two misshapen halves of the perverted template of the human body spurting blood before it fell to the ground with a mighty crash.

"I'm not your 'Emperor'," his savior said as he severed the appendage that was constricting his throat, allowing Solomon to take in deep breaths of air in haggard gulps and swallows. "You don't have to kneel before me."

_-Scene Break-_

Purring in my hands like a crouching tiger was Captain Kane's chainsword, Orkbiter, poised and ready to rend the enemies of justice. Crafted as a nameless sword by Tech-Priest Quintos of the Adeptus Mechanicus and forged in the fires of Manufactorum Pices on Mars, it was bequeathed to Kane when he had attained officer ranking at the death of its previous owner. The blade had gotten its name when Lieutenant Kane served in the Imperial Guard's Steel Legion, waging war against the greenskins in both local skirmishes against feral orks and against their space kindred in the Second War for Armageddon, his home-world. And in that time, the blade's teeth learned to crave the flesh and blood of the ork species, and as a result, the blade would cut deeper and more viciously when wielded against the alien which it had been so fond in rending.

I have no idea of what I just said...erm...thought. Machine spirit and Orks? Steel Legion? Why would someone name their planet "Armageddon"?

You know what? I'm going back to my fallback comfort that I usually used in situations like these.

I blame the Root for this. And that old man, too...

Truth be told, while I was sure that I could bring it out of my Reality Marble, I wasn't sure that the weapon itself would work properly, in regards to the whole "rotating chains" idea. The weapon had a power source cleverly built into the hilt of the weapon that gave energy for the finer bits of machinery to turn when the activation rune was pressed. The closest thing that I could relate to the source of energy itself was some form of heat-based power, found in the magazines of the Planetary Defense Forces and fired out their guns. I wasn't sure if I could Trace the motor and the battery itself, but when I did, there didn't appear to be any electrical energy stored inside the device like the power tools I had been used to seeing. After all, if there were many useful things that I learned at Homurahara Gakuen, energy could not be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form to another- all according to Sir Isaac Newton. Therefore, it was completely logical that the chains would not turn when I activated the weapon because I could not Trace energy within the machine's battery.

Yet I had been shocked when it began to siphon off of my Od as the chainsword roared to life at the touch of the activation rune. It was...similar, in a weird sense, to Noble Phantasms that required my Od for the special abilities to properly function, such as Rule Breaker's ability to sever contracts and bounds of the ethereal. The drain of Od was continuous as long as the "chains" were shrieking, but it was not a torrent of energy that was being siphoned from my Magic Circuits. If the laws of physics were still applicable here, it seemed that it was taking my Od and converting it into electricity, something that the weapon would normally not do but now _did_ because of the nature of my abilities. The conversion/drain was a slow trickle, easily fueled by even a single one of my limited Circuits and _very_ cost efficient for the results it produced, despite the fact that the blade itself was fighting the forces of Chaos and not that of the orks...whatever the hell they were.

"Go!" I had to shout while simultaneously parrying and countering the blade of a cultist to be heard over the din. "Gather the survivors and run back to the trenches. They're too much for you to handle at your level!" I hoped he could tell that I wasn't being condescending when I compared his comrades and the man himself to those of the obviously stronger mutants and Chaos Space Marines. But I couldn't afford to give a further explanation in the thick of battle.

I moved onto the closest enemies without waiting for his answer. The soldiers that were locked in combat with Orkbiter's new targets were desperately fighting for their lives, unloading energy beams into the bulks of three Chaos Space Marines, all of who simply shrugged it off and blasted two men into bloody chunks with a roar of the bulky gun they were clenching. A group of soldiers were backed up against a man, presumably an officer, who was waving a banner depicting a fist clenching a lightning bolt as he frantically blasted apart any cultists who were getting too close for firearms maneuverability, all the while shouting inspirational prayers to his men. That wasn't very subtle of him, marking himself and his men as obvious targets to the giants, but who was I to talk when I was swinging a chainsword?

The weapon itself turned out to be actually lighter than the appearance made it out to be. I once repaired a chainsaw for a friend's dad, a construction worker who had been in charge of building a new memorial for the victims of the Fukyuki Fire. The power mechanism for the chainsaw was the bulk of the weight, though the chains and the actual "blade" of the tool did contribute. I thought that the now od-powered power source would make the blade imbalanced and as impractical as a sword made from pure gold, but to my surprise, there were no negative side effects on the weapon itself. The total weapon weighed no more than a heavy broad-sword and I could easily slash through targets with only one hand. Despite my preference for the Chinese swords, I could just as easy wield a single weapon with two hands, as I had thought that the chainsword would be too heavy to wield without the aid of an extra appendage. It almost made me want to Trace another chainsword, just to see how two of the magnificent instruments of death would efficiently slaughter the Chaos forces, and by extension, the enemies of justice...

Almost.

The screaming of the chains preceded its swing as the sword ripped through the midsection of a gargantuan mutant that was in my way, easily knocking past a clumsy attempt to block the thirsting weapon. It's thick skin was first to give in, scattering into bloody pieces of flesh as they were churned into a foul mess. Fibrous muscles, thick and strong, came next as their owner's brain began to register the pain. The organs proceeded, some familiar while others appeared to be a mutation of unknown origins, all rupturing into messes of destroyed meat and spilled viscera. The spine was last, splintering into broken pieces of bone as the chainsword finished its grisly work, exiting out of the left side as the mutant howled in agony. Orkbiter exploded outward in a spray of black ichor from the monster's corpse.

Oh sweet Root, this weapon was glorious!

The monster hadn't finished toppling over, upper torso sliding off in a behind direction and lower extremities slumping forward when I moved past it, surprising the now-alert cultists. Their eyes widened in fear as they saw me sprinting towards them, the chainsword in my hands shrieking for blood. Three more fell in a single stroke as they fumbled to bring about their weapons to bear, shifting targets from the trapped soldiers to my advancing form. Their screams reached a fever pitch in harmony with Orkbiter's ripping keen as I butchered my way through the trapped soldiers, rending mutants into bloody chunks of ruined flesh and cleaving cultists into uneven halves of corrupted meat.

I finally exploded from the ranks of the enemy, coming from behind the Thunder Fist survivors as I sent more Chaos raiders to their deaths. Several of them turned to see me, surprised that something had came out of the enemy ranks that clearly wasn't a mutant. The officer had his pistol trained at me, but I could tell that it was an action done out of pure reflex with no malicious intent towards my person, but rather towards those who bore the stigmata of Chaos. They were quick to change their opinion of me, however, as I was quick to defend a downed soldier from a pack of savage mutants, both saving another man from death and affirming my loyalties to their side.

At my arrival, the Chaos Space Marines began to slough their way through the masses of their raiders, uncaring whether or not they knocked aside an errant cultist or crushed a wounded raider underfoot. They were my high-priority targets, the enemies that took precedence in extermination, just as I was undoubtedly theirs. Their leader was still dozens of meters behind the giants but he was quickly advancing at the second his glowing eyes locked onto mine of gold, radiating hatred and malice that I could feel a mile away. I had to make this quick before he arrived, as he was clearly the sentient that was giving orders to the three mindless behemoths before me and was, obviously, the more powerful of the giants.

Orkbiter clashed against the first giant's armour, easily knocking past a slow attempt to bring up its bulky gun to defend itself. The impact of its teeth against the Space Marine's armour caused the angry roar it emitted to become a high-pitched shriek as the adamantium edges began to slowly eat its way through its defenses. A spray of ash rewarded my efforts as the weapon tore through the giant's chest armour, the slash amplified when I added another hand to the appendage wielding the weapon. The following reverse strike took the blue-gold helmet off of the already-damaged chestplate. I moved past it, already sprinting towards the next giant as I saw the soldiers behind me swarm the fallen armour and proceed to stab, blast and hack at the still-twitching corpse of metal in order to fully bleed it of its essence.

While I was slightly disappointed that they didn't take my opening and run back to safety, I felt an odd sort of..._pride_, if that was the right word, for instilling the will to fight on against the foe. I wasn't one to lead others, preferring to go into combat alone like "master chief", as Lord El-Melloi the Second had told me. Truth be told, I had no idea what the man was even referencing during that lunch, probably some obscure literary character that seemed to like fighting alone. Even in the Fifth Grail War, I only "lead" Saber, the Servant I summoned, but that was completely different from leading a squad of men into battle. If I was to be summoned into a Grail War, Root forbid, I don't think I'd exactly have a high Charisma rating, like Iskander the Great or Saber, the King of Knights, both of who could lead men into the pits of hell and back.

But still...it felt _nice_.

The remainder of the two mindless drones ceased their advance as they saw their comrade fall, instead lifting up their weapons and drawing a line of fire on my body. I was already moving by the time the catch of the gun was cocked, my reinforced body putting as much speed as I could to throw off their aim. Whatever their leader was shouting them to do was obviously orders to lay down fire -something that I instinctively knew I had to stay away from with the utmost prejudice- to buy him time to reach our position. By the time his shouting were complete, they proceeded to unload the full salvo of their shots towards me. I had to nearly throw myself to the ground to avoid the scything fire, streaking past the air and aiming vertically to where I was before.

Structural Analysis immediately kicked in as my eyes tracked the rounds. Stripping away the outer layers to reveal the basic structure of the object was the pinnacle of Structural Grasp Magecraft and the foundation of my own Tracing. Normally, this ability was something that instinctively added new swords to my Reality Marble, but even before I gotten around to realizing that fact, it was something just used to aid me fix something by revealing the object as a rendered blueprint. It's a shame that Kiritsugu was dead, though. Had he been alive, I wouldn't be above pointing a finger at him and saying "HA!" in a counter to his dismissal of Structural Grasp.

Even as I dodged, I could already see the details of the "bullet" I was studying. Lacking tungsten, steel and lead that was more commonplace in firearm ammunition, this type of shot was composed of a smorgasbord of substances that I was barely able to comprehend. A composite form of industrialized diamond tipped the round, probably enabling a deeper penetration against heavy armour, on top of what appeared to be a small amount of combustile substance. Depleted uranium, a substance that I was surprised to find that I could register, separated an inner chamber of explosives in addition to providing weight and stopping power to the shot. But what surprised me the most was the fact that the goddamn thing was _rocket-__propelled_, evident by the plumes of fire that it spewed from its base.

That metal round flying through the air wasn't a bullet.

That thing was a -pardon my language- fucking rocket propelled _grenade_.

One stray round hit an unlucky cultist and I watched, mildly fascinated, as a secondary flare erupted from the back of round, accelerating it towards its unintentional target. It penetrated his chest with little effort as it drilled through his body with a ferocity -while was impressive, did nothing to match up to the drilling penetration power of Caladbolg- and exploding mere milliseconds after entry, evaporating the mid-section of the target while sending a fine mist of vitae and a splurge of intestines streaming down from the sky.

Well, shit. No wonder my sixth sense was screaming at me to dodge them; I highly doubted that even my reinforced steel armour could prevent _that_ kind of damage.

"Note to self," I muttered as they proceeded to reload their weapons, "Avoid exploding bullets at all costs." Yes, Shirou- being hit by explosive bullet equals BAD; dodging explosive bullet equals GOOD. Shaking my head from the latest installment of my insanity, I took advantage of the giant's fumbling attempts to slide the sickle-shaped magazine into their weapons, using their reloading phase to sprint at them with all the speed that my reinforced body could produce. By the time they had locked the magazine into the weapon, it was already too late.

Orkbiter tore through the first giant's gun with a single cleave. A reverse strike tore through its owner's midsection, sending a keening shriek and a spray of ash when the chainsword exited through its side, bisecting the metal construct. As it fell, I continued the blow as my legs carried both my body and the strike through the first Chaos Space Marine and into the companion behind it. Adamantium armour gave way to prana-Reinforced adamantium teeth, tearing off the arm at the shoulder and splitting its helm down the middle as soot exploded from the terrible wound it had been dealt.

Upon seeing the remainder of the mindless constructs fall, the cultists and some of the mutants with a higher processing power within their heads threw their weapons to the ground and either fled or begged for mercy as the now-galvanized soldiers came up behind me. Those who took the latter option were received with the discharge of laser weaponry that turned their bodies into cooked meat and silenced their screeching permanently. On principal, it was a good idea, not just because they were shooting at me and the soldiers earlier, but because they could still prove to be a threat even unarmed. I wasn't petty in dealing execution blows and, from the looks of it, neither were the soldiers. It all boiled down to a matter of precaution.

"Face me, dog of the Emperor! Or have you not the courage to fight a disciple of the dark gods?!"

The guttral cries rang out from the last of the giants, the one clad in a more ornate set of armour, as he charged towards my position, crushing fleeing cultists underfoot and blasting apart mutants with an unknown power. Again, the smell of wax pervaded my senses along with the burning stench of an unquenchable flame. This was no mere Space Marine, but something else entirely, with powers that disturbingly reminded me of the daemons that I vanquished. Though not magecraft, it seemed that both the beasts and the man drew from the same sort of power source to fuel their powers. What source it was, I knew not, save what I already knew: that it was neither prana nor od.

But this giant was no longer a man in control of his emotions. The apparent destruction of his army had unhinged him enough to come out from his command post to throw down the gauntlet and challenge me to one-on-one. While this wasn't exactly the outcome that I was hoping for, it was still something that leaned in favor towards my side of the battlefield. Single combat was something that I had mastered before learning how to face multiple opponents. Though the lessons from the blonde Heroic Spirit still give me nightmares to this day, they proved useful in dealing with opponents that had the advantage over me (which was somewhat of a slight bruise to my masculinity if a girl, despite her true identity as King Arthur of Britian, could beat the crap out of me). In this case, the advantage of strength and height was probably going to be used against me more than the other mindless Marines used.

But while we both brought dangerous powers to the battlefield, I held the belief that mine would play out to my victory.

"Get your men back to the trenches," I said to the banner officer behind me as he tried to approach me with a warning. "This isn't a fight that you can watch from the sidelines, let alone handle. But if you really want to help, keep the last of the cultists off me." Ignoring the blustering response that followed my request, Orkbiter shattered into fragments of prana on my command. By the time I was running to face the Chaos Space Marine, two familiar swords of contrasting color had already formed in my hands.

_-Scene Break-_

The dark blade clashed against the swords of black and white, sending a cascade of sparks that showered the two combatants in flickering light. One was a giant among giants, a Chaos Space Marine, a Thousand Sons Aspiring Sorcerer who had the powers of the warp at his beck and call and the cunning savagery that all followers of the Ruinous Powers had. The other was a mortal, a young man who had the ability to conjure swords out of thin air, swords that could explode, swords that could shriek for blood, swords that gave hope to the defenders of the besieged town.

The soldiers had thought that they would lose at the apparent destruction of the Tank and the subsequent injury done unto their captain. They had thought that their families, friends and loved ones would become sacrifices to the dark gods of Chaos as the army of mutants and cultists would trample over their bodies, defiling them even in death. It would have been better for them to blow the explosives wired within the walls of the bunkers as soon as the first mutant set foot in the underground, better to grant the civilians a swift death by caving in the structure rather than having their souls suffer in eternal anguish as playthings of the Ruinous Powers.

But that was then. And this is now.

"He's doing it!" an ecstatic lookout cried, the same one who had screamed at the sight of the Chaos forces. "The lad's holding his own against a Space Marine!"

"By the Emperor!" exclaimed a Junior Officer as he passed the magnoculars to the men under his command, who promptly began to argue amongst themselves as to who would be first to see the combat through the device. "Never have I seen anything of the like! A psyker with a strange ability matching an entire strike force of Chaos in warfare!"

The Tech-Priest assigned to the maintenance of the trench guns was undergoing conniptions of his own kind. "How...how is it that he can conjure up structures of the Machine God's sacred work? Metal blades would not be of any concern, but the fact that he created a chainsword...paradigm shift commencing; evaluating and readjusting life goals. Top precedence is to be directed towards the understanding of this...this sorcery..."

"Lads!" Jorgenson, Kane's right-hand man, roared as he waved the tattered banner of the Thunder Fists high above the trenches. It was well known that he would fly into zealous glorification of the Emperor and his works, despite his status as a tank driver. People often told him that it was a shame he wasn't a part of the Ecclesiarchy or the Commissariat, as he would have made either an excellent cleric or inspiring commissar, but he would not budge from his assignment under Kane. That, and there existed another secret reason with the ex-Steel Legion captain as to his stubborn determination not to join either organizations.

"Because of that man, that brave soul who fights the Ruinous Powers, has secured the life of our captain, who awaits his return for the life-saving treatment! If this psyker...this witch will go as far as to prove his worth to the Emperor, despite his stigma, who are we to stand idle while he battles the foe?!

Though the time is dark, our faith shines through! The Emperor has sent us a champion to guide us through the shadows and strike it at its very heart! We may have been hostile to him at first, but that was because we were afraid! Can it be said now that we still feel fear?!

The psyker strikes the foe with the wrath of the righteous! Ignore his stigma, for if the Emperor chose a psyker to aid us, who are we to deny and question Him?!"

The soldiers went wild after the tank driver's fierce rhetoric. Some dropping to their knees, weeping shamelessly as they thanked their God-Emperor for such a magnificent blessing upon their humble world. Other began to chant their hero's name, as they rose from the trenches to launch a counter-assault on the lingering remnants of the cultists and mutants scattered to the flanks of the battlefield.

Confessor Enoch was furious. How dare they...how dare they uplift an escaped psyker to the status of a champion of the God-Emperor! This...this was heresy! But there was nothing he could do at the moment. Wait for the battle to be over, he ordered himself as his bolt pistol liquified a mutant that the witch had torn in half. Wait for the battle to be over, wait for the rogue to slay the Chaos Space Marine...and then he would make his move in the name of the Emperor!

"EM-I-YA! EM-I-YA! EM-I-YA! EM-I-YA! EM-I-YA!" the soldiers chanted as they scourged the heretic, suffered not the mutant to live and purged the Chaos that they could without interfering with the duel of ages.

* * *

**[CODEX ENTRY: Planets]**

_Balaam_

**Population:** 4.2 Million  
**Tithe Grade:** Exaxtus Median  
**Geography:** Temperate climate (Recent discovery of solar radiation may be cause of an increase of extreme shifts in summer and winter temperatures). Two main continents- Forest/fertile plains and mineral-rich mountains (Settlements 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13) and Temperate landmass (Capital city and Settlements 1, 2, 3, and 4). Two archipelagos- (Settlements 5, 6, 7) and One man-made structure afloat the sea (Settlement 8). Remainder of surface is covered in ocean (relatively clean, flourishing fishing stocks).  
**Government Type: **Adeptus Terra  
**Planetary Governer: **Lysiast Horst  
**Adept Presence:** Adeptus Terra, Adeptus Ministorum, Adeptus Astra Telepathica (Astropathic Choir at Capital), Adeptus Arbites  
**Military:** Balaam Thunder Fists (Medium/High quality force, based around all settlements)  
**Trade:** As an agri-world, Balaam is a major exporter of raw materials and foodstuffs for the Bhein-Moor sub-sector. It is also one of the few agri-worlds that has a reputable planetary defense force and a population of tough, adaptable Imperial Guard recruit sources. If necessary, Balaam can support itself with the food supplies and handful of munitions manufactorums scattered across the planet.

Admentum

_*No. 1_- The population of Balaam is spread over its capital city and thirteen subsidiary "settlements" that have remained in use ever since their colonization during the Great Crusade. The settlements' population produces the bulk of exported materials to be sent to the capital for trade and export with the nearby systems and neighboring sectors. In return, the capital promises protection and security.

_*No. 2-_ The settlement names, main produce and population are following (^):

0) Horstion (Capital City)- Trade [1,000,000]  
1) Primus- Soldiers [437,500]  
2) Sephiris- Firearms [437,500]  
3) Carnus- Meats [525,000]  
4) Tarsus- Meats [300,000]  
5) Oceanus- Fish/Marine [300,000]  
6) Panemus- Fish/Marine [300,000]  
7) Aegis- Iron [300,000]  
8) Argum- Metals [300,000]  
9) Naclorum- Salts [75,000]  
10) Rohanus- Wheats/Grains [70,000]  
11) Eragus- Wheats/Grains [80,000]  
12) Oblion- Wheats/Grains [140,000]  
13) Phearus- Wheat/Grains [10,000]

(^) Updated 986.M41. Numbers include locally stationed PDF troops.

* * *

******On a side not, all the lore debates that are flooding my PM box are giving me a headache...TYPE-Moon, y u no make things simple?! I have created a forum for all the users to debate and help me find connections to the Nasuverse and 40k worlds. It is called "The Lost Son's Workshop". Don't hesitate to debate.**

******If you have any comments, threats, flames, criticisms, etc. please don't hesitate to PM me or post a review. I will accept it with my head held low and my body and mind humble. Just try not to overly curse me if I did anything overtly stupid.**

******I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


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